Luke Evans opens up about homophobic bullying from ‘evil little b**tards’ at school

The Hobbit star Luke Evans has spoken about the homophobic bullying he suffered at school, which left him feeling “dirty” and a “like [he] had a disease”.

The star revealed in his new memoir, Boy from the Valleys: An Unexpected Journey, that fellow pupils called him a “Jovey bender” because he grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and they assumed he was gay.

“I was bullied for being gay before I even understood what it meant,” he wrote. “The worst nickname was Jovey bender because it combined two aspects of my identity that could never be reconciled – homosexuality is not accepted in the religion.

“It’s a terribly dark place to be as a child, knowing you’re somehow ‘wrong’, but with no idea why that is or how you can fix it,” he continued. “I hated school. Children can be horribly intolerant, evil little b**tards some of them. Anything slightly different about you and you’re a target – and I was different in almost every way possible.”

In the extract from the book, published by The Guardian, the Good Grief actor recalled an incident in a maths lesson when a classmate refused to sit next to him, even though that was the only seat available.

“To be treated like that as a child and made to feel there’s something intrinsically wrong with you, it’s so painful, and it stays with you,” he told The Guardian. He was left feeling “dirty” and as if he “had a disease”, he went on to say.

“I had to keep analysing what it was about me that was making them do this. Was it my voice? Was it that I was slightly effeminate?”

He felt unable tell his parent about the bullying because he was “too ashamed of the names” he was being called and the fear of being cut off by them because of their religious beliefs.

After he become more successful, and popular – he began his career in London’s West End but moving into Hollywood blockbusters – his sexuality became public knowledge, and his parents were told by Church elders to stop talking to him.

However, his father’s response was far from what he expected.

The Beauty & The Beast star, who has been in a relationship with Spanish construction project manager Fran Tomas since 2021, recalled his dad telling the Church congregation: “When I got sick, who put petrol in the car? Who paid for the electricity? Who paid for the food in the fridge? Was it you? No, it was our son.

“Even though you tried to keep us away from him, has Luke ever told us to leave the Church? No. He’s moved as far as he possibly can from us so he wouldn’t bring reproach on the religion, and you’re still trying to drag him back into this.

“Well, never again Don’t come to our house and tell us not to speak to our son because if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t even have this house.” 

Boy from the Valleys: An Unexpected Journey is published on 7 November.

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