Sir Stephen Fry has talked candidly about his marriage to Elliott Spencer regarding their 30-year age difference.
The couple, who met at a friend's party in the early 2010s, celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary this year.
Fry, 67, had to settle breakup rumours last year after Spencer, 36, was spotted out of his presence for a while. The Celebrity Traitors star assured fans that everything was well.
He has now discussed their “successful relationship” and been open about the highs and lows of the age difference on Rylan Clark's new podcast, Rylan: How to Be in Love.
Fry said, “I can tell you how to have a successful relationship with Elliot, but that’s probably not very helpful.”
He revealed that Spencer has exposed him to facets of society that he had never previously thought to explore.
“He introduced me to Kendrick Lamar, which was a great thing to do because Kendrick Lamar I've decided is a great poetical spirit, a really remarkable figure.”
But who is Spencer and how did the pair meet?
Who is Elliott Spencer?
Spencer is a writer, comedian, and actor.
He was born in Southampton in 1987 and is well-known for his television appearances and stand-up comedy skills. He has worked on a number of TV and radio projects in addition to his stand-up career.
The entertainer has been seen with comedians like David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr.
The summer of 2014 marked the start of his romance with Fry. Before he and Fry revealed their relationship to the world, Spencer was known as Mr. E.
Fry said on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2015: “We met at a friend’s house and I knew pretty much straight away that this was someone I wanted to spend, what I considered, the rest of my life with.”
In 2015, Fry proposed to Spencer at a London restaurant.
On The Jonathan Ross Show, the Alice in Wonderland star admitted that while he had a feeling Spencer would accept, there was a brief moment when he feared the painstakingly prepared proposal would not work out.
“I kind of knew that he’d say yes, we had kind of danced around the subject [of marriage] and I bought a ring and waited for him to pop off to the loo and put the ring on the prongs of a fork so that he would see it as he started to eat. I thought it would be charming.
“Of course, he came back and he started chatting and he started playing with the fork and I thought, ‘For God’s sake look at the fork’ — you don’t really ever look at forks do you — and I thought, ‘He’s going to pick it up and the ring is going to fly off into that lady’s soup…’”
Spencer caught the ring just in time, he continued, and described the proposal as a “very teary and splendid moment.”
The pair got married the same year in an intimate registry office ceremony in Norfolk and a mini Oscar Wilde witnessed their vows, according to reports.
In an interview with The Independent, Spencer stated: “I don’t care what people think. Stephen is the love of my life, the light of my life.”
He added: “We laugh all the time. Humour is the binding thing in our life. I think that’s what brought us together.”
The pair’s thriving relationship became clear when Fry publicly thanked his husband following the struggles he faced with prostate cancer.
In a social media post shared in 2018, he said: “My family and my divine, darling husband were just marvellous. And those friends who have known have been very kind about it.
“I’m lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people. Lucky to have such an incredibly team working for me. And lucky to have an immune system working for me.”
Do the pair have any children?
The pair do not have any children.
Fry expressed his wish to have children with Spencer in a 2022 interview with The Mirror. The Black Adder star stated that not having children of his own is one of his greatest regrets.
“I have many godchildren now, nieces and nephews, and great-nieces and great-nephews, but I’ll never experience a child growing up. It’s a slight sadness,” he expressed to the outlet.
“I mean, that’s probably the biggest hole in my life experience.”
He clarified that although it hasn't happened yet, he and Spencer had talked about the possibility of becoming parents together.
“Elliott and I, we talked about it a bit, but we never talked about it to the extent of ‘Right, so, we’re going to a clinic tomorrow to talk this through to some expert,'” he said.
“We never quite got that far. It was always ‘Yeah, it would be nice, wouldn’t it?’”
