Gay pardons ‘sad but also victory’

Actor Rupert Everett has praised new plans for thousands of deceased gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished crimes to be posthumously pardoned as a “great victory”.

But the gay star also said the move is “very sad in another sense” regarding Oscar Wilde, who was convicted in 1895 for gross indecency with men.

The playwright was imprisoned for two years for homosexual acts and he could be one of those pardoned.

Complexities involving the evidence for Wilde’s conviction may lead to him not being eligible for a pardon, however.

Everett said: “I think it’s a great victory in one sense and very sad in another sense, obviously that Oscar Wilde himself had to go through such a period of desperation and almost vagrancy really being an outcast.”

He added: “I think it sends a great message out to other parts of the world, where the same kind of things are still happening that happened to Oscar Wilde.”

Everett is playing the Importance of Being Earnest writer in his forthcoming

“In some places the things that happened to Wilde still go on”

self-written and directed film The Happy Prince. The film, which also stars Colin Firth and Merlin’s Colin Morgan, tells the story of the writer’s life in exile after he was convicted and jailed before his death.

Actor Rupert Everett