Sunday Times caption: Laurence Fox says women are being primed to believe they are victims (FRANCESCO GUIDCINI)
A piece in today’s Sunday Times:
The actor Laurence Fox has admitted that he once dumped a girlfriend for being “too woke” and said that he refuses to date women under 35 because of their politically correct views. {Mike Buchanan: I refuse to date women under 35 for the same reason. And women over 35.]
Fox, who sparked controversy on BBC1’s Question Time last Thursday for railing against accusations of “white male privilege”, said he had finished the relationship early last year after a few months when his girlfriend expressed some “woke” opinions.
The final straw came when the woman, whom Fox did not name, praised a Gillette advert that targeted “toxic masculinity”. The video ad, which showed images of bullying, sexual harassment, sexist behaviour and aggressive male behaviour, asked, “Is this the best a man can get?” — a play on the razor manufacturer’s famous slogan.
Critics called the ad “feminist propaganda” for painting men as violent bullies and sexual harassers and it divided public opinion as well as Fox and his ex.
Fox, 41, best known for his role as Sergeant Hathaway in ITV’s Lewis, said of the affair: “I don’t know how we ended up together. It was a very short relationship. We were walking down the road and she was talking about how good the Gillette advert was. I just looked at her and went, ‘Bye. Sorry, I can’t do this with you.’”
He said they had also argued because she was a vocal supporter of Christine Blasey Ford, who came forward in 2018 to accuse Brett Kavanaugh, who was at the time a US Supreme Court nominee, of sexually assaulting her in high school in 1982. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.
“Believe the victim,” Fox was told, to which he responded: “No, you don’t believe the victim. That’s not how it works. You listen to the victim. The victim’s evidence is examined and a jury of their peers makes that decision.”
The actor, who also plays Lord Palmerston in ITV’s Victoria, said the two conversations had been the main reasons for breaking up. “You know when a woman starts speaking to you like that you need to run. She’s literally giving you two very strong hints that she’s about to make your life miserable,” he said.
He told the Delingpod podcast, presented by the writer James Delingpole: “She had been primed. This is the problem if you are priming women to believe they are victims and that this is a tyrannical patriarchy. It’s not like they’ve got a solution for that. They just want a matriarchy. Exactly the same, just the women in charge. And it’s just like, no, sorry.”
Fox was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and followed his father James Fox, who starred in Performance with Mick Jagger, into acting. His brother Jack recently starred in ITV’s Sanditon, and cousins Emilia and Freddie Fox are also acting stars.
Anyone looking for love should “find out whether your values align”, said Fox, adding that he was now in a “really good” relationship. “If your values differ, you’re going to have difficulty getting on with someone.”
Before his current relationship he learnt to avoid younger women because they seemed to enjoy playing “victims”, he said. “The cut-off for me is about 34. If you go under 35 they are absolutely bonkers.”
Younger women, he added, tended to consider themselves “very oppressed by men” and believed “that the world is a terrible place”. Asked what his type was, Fox said he preferred “people who have lived a real life”.
He added: “Women who take personal responsibility for things rather than try to solve all the ailments of the world. I’m not into victimising yourself. I don’t like people who blame a lack of success on their identity — they’d have been more successful as a male, for example.”
Fox was married to Billie Piper, 37, the actress and singer, for eight years until their divorce in 2016. They have two children, Winston, 11, and Eugene, 7, and are bringing them up together.
“There’s a lot of stuff that men do and sacrifices we make and having to adjust,” said Fox. “I’m a single father now, so I’m learning how to raise two children, which is something my dad never did because he had my mum there. So we are all adjusting. I don’t see myself as victim of my divorce.”
Fox’s former girlfriends since his divorce include Lilah Parsons, 31, a Heart FM radio host, Kirsty Gallacher, 43, the Sky Sports News presenter, and Vogue Williams, 34, an Irish model.
When asked whether his former girlfriend would mind him talking about their past, he said: “She will probably sit there and say, ‘See, I told you he was patriarchal. He’s abusing me and I’m offended.’”
Equity rewrites its lines about outspoken actor
Fox revealed that Equity has backtracked on its condemnation of his BBC Question Time appearance.
The actor’s union initially responded on Twitter by calling on members “to unequivocally denounce Laurence Fox and his comments”. It said Fox was “disgracefully playing to the gallery” and called him a “disgrace to our industry” in tweets that have since been deleted. Yesterday the union distanced itself from the comments, saying they were written by two “rogue” committee members from its diversity team “without consultation”. Equity said: “A more considered response is being discussed.”
An insider said the union was looking at disciplining the pair, adding: “It’s not the practice of the union to condemn anyone in the profession, whether they are a member or not, which is why they’ve had to delete the tweets.”
Fox said last night: “Equity is a union, therefore its opinions should have been put to a vote. Equity has been systematically letting down actors for years. I’ve never joined Equity and never would. I don’t think they’re a very good union.”
The actor sparked fierce debate after appearing on Question Time on Thursday when he denied that Meghan Markle had been subject to racism. He was labelled a “white privileged male” by a university lecturer and race and ethnicity researcher in the audience.
Fox responded by branding the academic “racist”, winning a legion of fans on social media in the process. He went on: “I can’t help what I am, I was born like this, it’s an immutable characteristic, so to call me a white privileged male is to be racist — you’re being racist.”
The actor has revelled in the furore on social media, responding to critics. He wrote on Twitter that he had spoken “truth to nonsense” and posted the Martin Luther King quote: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
His Twitter following has more than doubled since the appearance taking him from 50,000 followers to nearly 119,000. Fox said: “The stuff that I said was totally normal. It’s what many people will be saying around their dinner tables in this country. For this to piss people off on Twitter this much means it is an important thing to discuss. It’s not mad shit. I’m not saying anything crazy. We cannot be scared of these people [on Twitter]. They bully people. They are the very thing they criticise.”
He said the Twitter insults he received were “water off a duck’s back”, though friends had been worried. “This is the nightmare of the post-Question Time debacle or being centre of attention for a bit. I don’t mind if it just makes you a bit stressed.”
Asked whether he was worried that he would miss out on acting roles, Fox said: “Not at all. I wouldn’t want to work for somebody who would only hire me because I had the right opinion. I would only want to work for people who appreciated a diversity of opinion.”
Lily Allen, who filmed herself apparently crying with happiness after she read the Labour manifesto last year, posted on Instagram: “Sick to death of luvvies like Lawrence Fox going on TV and forcing their opinions on everybody else.”
The singer, who was privately educated at Millfield and Bedales, has appeared on ITV political programme Peston on Sunday and the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show, where she travelled to Calais to apologise to refugees “on behalf of my country” in 2016.
Fox said: “I don’t think as a breed us luvvies are well known for our self-awareness, are we Lily?”
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