BAFTAs host Alan Cumming opens up on 'grey' sexuality as he's 'mislabelled'

Edinburgh Live

11-05-2025

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Alan Cumming, this year's BAFTAs host, has opened up about his sexuality ahead of today's glitzy awards ceremony. The US Traitors host that says the terms often used to describe him and his sexuality tend to be over-simplistic and tend to mislabel him.
Alan, whose versatile acting talent spans from playing the flamboyant Sebastian Flight in BBC2's hit comedy The High Life to the brooding mutant superhero Nightcrawler in the X-Men franchise, also embraces a fluid approach in his personal life.
Detailing his perspective on his website, Alan says: "I think my sexuality and most people's sexuality is grey. I am married to a man. I have a healthy sexual appetite and a healthy imagination.
"I also have an attraction to women. I've never lost it, actually. I've always been attracted to both sexes, and whether I act on it or not is not anyone's business."
(Image: Manoli Figetakis, Getty Images)
Alan married artist Grant Shaffer in 2007, but previously had an eight-year marriage to actress Hilary Lyon. The actor made his bisexuality public in 1998.
Preferring to describe his sexuality with the term "queer," Alan sees this label as encompassing more than just himself, relating it to his work on The Traitors during an interview with The Independent: "The Traitors is such a queer show," he states, reports the Daily Record.
Narrating his own influence on the show, he adds, "There's me at the centre of it, being super queer with all my crazy outfits. Two of the winners this year are queer people, and that's so lovely. I really did push to have a better representation in the show, and that's certainly worked."
(Image: Steve Granitz, FilmMagicvia Getty Images)
He expressed that amidst the rising culture of intolerance in Trump's America, it brings him a glimmer of hope to witness "so many queer people and, hopefully, trans people in a show that also celebrates dressing up, androgyny, femme-ness, and queerness."
He voiced his hopes that The Traitors might challenge the perspectives of those who back politicians intent on "trying to demean and destroy" minority groups.
Alan reflected on the recent series finale, noting its optimistic tone: "It's so interesting to me that this series had these so many traitors being completely bonkers, chaotic, and dystopian in betraying each other - and then, for it to end in such a lovely way, with four people all trusting each other."
In an amusing twist, he added, "it mirrored what's going on in America right now, It was the ending we all needed."
(Image: NBC, Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
Alan hosts the US version of The Traitors, filmed in the same remote Scottish castle. Despite this, he's never crossed paths with his UK counterpart Claudia Winkelman. He wondered: "Isn't it nuts?
"We might be the same person because you've never seen us in the same room. We have mutual friends and nearly met years ago."
However, the pair have devised a playful method of communication, fittingly aligned with the show's theme of secrecy.
"We leave messages for each other on the make-up mirror," he revealed.