Culture

Stephen Fry: We planted a fake wedding date to throw off the press

Feb 07 2015
Written by Nick Duffy

Illustrated rainbow pride flag on a white background.

Stephen Fry has opened up about his wedding to comedian Elliott Spencer, in his first TV interview since getting married.

The pair married in a quiet ceremony last month, amid a tabloid storm after news of their engagement was leaked to the press.

The QI host has opened up on The Jonathan Ross Show about his proposal to Spencer, and the pair’s wedding

He said of meeting the comedian for the first time: “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.

“Whether he thought the same because he’s got rather a lot more to go than me.

“There is an age difference and I keep forgetting which way round it is but I think he’s younger than me but I don’t mind.”

Of his proposal, he said: “I kind of knew that he’d say yes., we’d kind of danced around the subject.

“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?

“I thought ‘he’s going to pick it up and the ring is going to fly off into that lady’s soup… but fortunately he just in time caught sight of it and it was a very teary and splendid moment.”

Of the pair’s wedding in Dereham, he said: “We chose it because it’s a small market town, they call it ‘the Heart of Norfolk’ that’s it’s little slogan and a wonderful, wonderful registrar had taken it upon herself with a great deal of pride.

“They decided that our wedding should be private and the wonderful [registrar] Linda put a false date into the computer in case it was being hacked or in case there was a mole within the borough.”

“It meant that Elliot and I were able to be conjoined without any photographers or journalists which was really nice.”

However, he remained tight-lipped about the pair’s honeymoon, saying: “We are going off to a secret location, as honeymoons must be.”