Brian Sewell - Personal Life

Personal Life

In a television programme broadcast on Channel 4 on 24 July 2007, marking the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which partially decriminalised homosexuality in England and Wales, Sewell said, "I never came out... but I have slowly emerged". Sewell has been described as bisexual but has also described himself as gay, saying he knew he was probably at the age of six. He has chastised himself for his attraction to men, describing it 'as an "affliction" and a "disability" and readers, "no homosexual has ever chosen this sexual compulsion"'. In the first episode of The Naked Pilgrim Sewell alluded to the loss of his virginity at the hands of a 60-year-old French woman "who knew what she was doing and was determined"; Sewell was 20 at the time. In his autobiography, however, Sewell states that he lost his virginity at the age of 15 to a fellow pupil at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School. However, the discrepancy can be explained by the differences in sex; Sewell lost his heterosexual virginity to the French woman, but his homosexual virginity to the pupil earlier (given Sewell's negative image of homosexual behaviour, this is quite plausible). In the late 1960s or early 1970s, when Sewell visited Salvador Dalí at his house in Cadaqués, Dalí convinced Sewell to strip and masturbate for him while he took (or pretended to take) photographs.

In an interview for That's Mad website, Sewell revealed that he suffers from depression, and as a cure usually just sleeps for a long time during the more severe phases.