'Obsession' Star Richard Armitage Comes Out & Mentions Male Partner

Richard Armitage, star of the latest Netflix hit series Obsession, has come out.

During an interview with Radio Times, Armitage casually dropped the announcement of his coming out. “[It] happened when I was 19 – to anybody who mattered – and I was always waiting for that question to punch me in the face, and it never did,” the actor noted. “I thought, ‘Are people being polite, or is it that they don’t want to know?’”

Though he had come out a while ago to the people who were close to him, this was Armitage’s first time addressing his sexuality in public. He explained:

“I don’t know that I ever wanted to put myself in front of the work I was doing, anything about my family or personal life. I just thought, ‘Let the work speak for itself.’”

Armitage elaborated, “I love the conversation with the younger generation. I love the idea that whatever gender, sexuality, the fluidity of who you love, how you identify, is not fixed. That was always a thing: if I declare who I am and my sexuality, then I’m saying it’s fixed and I don’t know that, or if I might feel something for somebody further down the line. I doubt it, but I don’t know.”

In another interview with the Evening Standard, Armitage confirmed that he has a male partner, with whom he had conversations prior to exposing himself – including full-frontal nudity – so much on Obsession. “We did talk about it. I reassured him that it was all going to be fine, and we were being well looked after. Charlie and I have met each other’s partners and gone for dinner.”

Armitage plays the lead character of William Farrow on the Netflix steamy thriller Obsession. On the show, William is a surgeon who gets into an affair with his son’s fiancée, Anna Barton (played by Charlie Murphy). As one would expect, this dangerous relationship threatens not only William’s personal life, but also his career.

Gotta love it when an actor decides to live in his truth!

Obsession is now streaming on Netflix.

Obsession | Official Trailer | Netflixnetflix #netflixlimitedseries #obsession.