The comedian Sandi Toksvig has revealed she needed police protection at her wedding because of anti-LGBT death threats.
The broadcaster, known for hosting QI, entered a civil partnership with Debbie Toksvig in 2007, and the couple married shortly after the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2014.
Speaking to the Cambridge Union, Ms Tokvig said she still received death threats more than three decades after coming out.
The 65-year-old said: “I have had a lot of death threats. My wife and I, when we got married I had to have a close protection police officer beside me.
“It is still ongoing, but you can’t let that rule your life. This is who I am. I am not going to live in the shadows of anything.”
The couple got married at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in front of 2,000 people, including celeb guests such as David Mitchell and LGBT campaigner Peter Tatchell.
She added: “I have been threatened twice since I have been in Cambridge in the last month. But also I’ve been hugged a lot. That is the risk you take. The modern world is weird.
“The best thing to do with homophobes is to be charming and funny. They hate it. I feel sorry for people who don’t like our community, who don’t know much about it.”
The former host of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz was speaking as part of a new initiative that enables distinguished LGBTQ+ alumni to conduct a research project.
Toksvig, 65, has paused her theatre and broadcasting work during the prestigious institution’s Michaelmas term while she works on a Mappa Mundi project.
The television presenter, who read law, archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge’s Girton College, has been awarded the inaugural Qantabrigian Fellowship for 2023-24.
The fellowship, awarded by the LGBTQ+ research programme in Cambridge’s Department of Sociology, aims to build stronger links with Cambridge’s LGBTQ+ alumni and widen participation in the university’s research and teaching activities.
