Ncuti Gatwa has said that he’s “never been in the closet” as he confessed to being confused by fans’ reaction to his initial reluctance to label his sexuality.
While Gatwa rose to fame playing gay teenager and scene stealer Eric Effiong on Netflix’s Sex Education, the incoming Doctor Who star had long avoided publicly addressing his sexuality.
That was until an interview with Elle in August where he subtly referred himself as “queer”.
In a new interview with GQ, Gatwa, 31, described how he privately came out to his mother five years ago and was shocked by her supportive and undramatic reaction. Gatwa and his family moved from Rwanda when he was two years old to escape genocide in the country, and settled in Scotland as refugees.
While he spent years without discussing his sexuality publicly, Gatwa stressed that he had never meant it to be a statement. “It sort of became a more complicated issue than I ever wanted it to be,” he said. “It became a situation that kind of ran away from me.”
The Scottish-Rwandan actor said that he used the term queer in the Elle interview because “it felt right in the moment”, adding: “I’ve never been in the closet, you know. I just never talked about it. The work I do is what’s important.”
Two months before, he’d posed naked for British Vogue’s Pride issue in June. But because he did not explicitly define his sexuality in the interview, Gatwa says fans were “confused” – a response that somewhat baffled him in turn.
“I kind of thought that my participation in [the Pride issue] was a statement,” he said. “Not to come for anyone, but I was like, you know, two plus two equals four. I couldn’t be louder about this. I literally got naked.”
Gatwa publicly described himself as queer in an interview in August— (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
He continued: “What is the point of putting a label on anything? I’m not going to do that for people that I don’t know… If you think it’s that easy, I’m happy for you. That’s a very privileged position to be in. To think that sexuality is so easy, and talking about sexuality is so easy and existing with one’s sexuality is so easy. I’m so glad that you think it’s that easy, because the world isn’t like that.”
At the time, Gatwa told Vogue that he didn’t want to discuss his sexuality due to his “safety and mental health”, and that people had felt like he “owed” them after being on a popular show like Sex Education.
“In setting my boundaries, I knew I wanted to separate the private and public, and that I never wanted my personal life to overshadow my work,” he said. “I also believe that everyone is on their own journey, and it’s important that no one feels an obligation to others in relation to what’s happening to them internally.”
Gatwa said that he had ‘never been in the closet'— (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
On social media, some fans had taken issue with Gatwa appearing in the Pride issue but not addressing his sexuality. “If you don’t want to talk about your sexuality don’t do a feature where the point is discussing your sexuality,” one tweet read.
Speaking in an interview with The Independent in 2020, at the height of Sex Education’s popularity, Gatwa said that fans of the show reached out to talk to him about his character Eric’s story even when he himself didn’t discuss his sexuality.
“People reach out every day, telling me it’s illegal to be gay where they’re from, or their families don’t know and they’re struggling, or just that they watch the show for escapism,” he said. “It’s very beautiful and it’s nice to know that people can find strength in our characters. Representation goes a long, long, long way.”
