蜜芽传媒

1. He's very attracted to people with terrible relationships with their parents

Richard says he’s found that he’s drawn “to people who have a terrible relationship with their parents, or absent parents, because it was just not like that for me.” His own childhood, in Northampton, was so happy that when it came to love, he “took that for granted… My mum and dad loved me and I never for a second doubted that.”

Richard Coles in the How to Be in Love studio

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Richard Coles on life as a pop star in Ibiza

If that had a downside, it was that in adulthood he had to learn that the occasional argument didn’t mean you were unloved. “If someone raised their voice, I thought, ‘Oh god, it’s the end of the world!’” he says. “It took me a little while to get used to it.”

2. Star Trek’s Captain Kirk was his first crush

Richard always knew he was gay, saying, “As soon as I had any sexual desire, it was always for blokes.” His first crush was “Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise [in Star Trek]. The boots, the trousers, the hugging jersey, the phaser – all that.” He came out to his parents, age 16, with the help of a record.

“I sat my mum down and made her listen to Tom Robinson singing Sing If You’re Glad To Be Gay. After about five times, she said, ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’” He said it was met with full acceptance: “People who loved and cared for me, they wanted what was best for me.”

3. In his pop star days he once lost a speedboat

At 18, Richard moved to London, where he met Jimmy Somerville, “who turned out to be one of the most amazing talents of the 1980s.” Together, they formed The Communards, who had hits with songs like Don’t Leave Me This Way and Never Can Say Goodbye. “It’s ridiculous, but I got to be a pop star.”

It was the start of a hedonistic time for Richard, which went on for some years. “After the band reached its highest point and we were taking a break – which we’re still on 35 years later – that was when sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll came together for me.” At one point, while living in Ibiza, he and his friends got banned from a car rental company for life for ruining too many cars.

But, he even managed to lose an even bigger vehicle. “I bought a speedboat and I don’t know where it is,” he says. “It’s still out there as far as I know.”

4. Being a reverend and in love with a man came with complications

Richard’s relationship with the church began in childhood, when he was a chorister. “I loved the music and the atmosphere,” he says. “I loved everything about it, except I didn’t believe in any of it.” As he got older, that changed. He says believing in God was “like falling in love”. He was ordained in 2005.

Rylan and Richard Coles in the studio

At a service in 2007, he met David, who was studying to be a vicar. They fell in love and entered into a civil partnership. Being in a same sex relationship and part of the church had its conflicts, but his belief has always been that his homosexuality is not in opposition with his religion.

“The Bible doesn’t actually teach anything like that,” he says. “The Bible is not one voice speaking for all eternity. The Bible is a library… The Bible is also about love. I’ve always known that God had no problem with me and David finding that in each other. The church might have its problem, but that’s not really the important thing.”

5. He lost himself when his partner died

Richard's partner, David, was an alcoholic, which eventually led to liver failure. He underwent an operation, but didn’t wake up after. His life support was switched off and he died five days later. “In retrospect, I was completely bananas,” says David of his grief. “Mad as a bus. Then lockdown happened and I was stuck at home on my own with just the dogs and I had to let it hit me. And it did. It was heartbreaking. Piercing, piercing sadness. I thought, I’ll never get out of this. I knew it was because I loved him and I knew he loved me, but he was gone.”

His religion helped him process grief. “Jesus doesn’t say, ‘I give you life’, so you’ll be happy. He says, ‘I give you life in its fullness’. You can’t really know joy, I think, until you know despair.”

6. He found a new kind of love in his 60s

“One day, about three years after David had died, I woke up one morning and It was like a polar bear coming out of hibernation,” says Richard. “I thought, I think I’ve got enough life now that I could begin to share it with someone. I’m lonely and I want to do something about that.” He tried dating apps and met a man, also called Richard. “We went for the classic old gay date. We went to a Royal Horticultural Society garden.”

After 12 years of life with his previous partner David, Richard worried that “I haven’t got 12 years’ worth of getting to know… somebody else.” However, he says he and Richard both came with the same approach: “We’re both over 60. We’ve maybe got 20 years of reasonable health, so we can have fun and do stuff. [And we both thought] I want to do that with you.”

7. He’s very happy again

Richard says love the second time is different, but no less special. “So much of it is the everyday stuff… That’s the seed of it, and then what grows out of that is that I’m in the last third of my life and it’s full of light. It’s just so great… And that’s him, and the inheritance of what I’ve had before.”