Sandi Toksvig gets death threats for being gay and needed police at her wedding

10 January 2024 , 19:05

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Sandi Toksvig says she will host QI for another five years (Image: BBC/Fremantle Media/Talkback/Brian Ritchie)

She came out nearly thirty years ago but Sandi Toksvig still regularly receives death threats over being a lesbian, she has revealed.

The QI host, 65, said her decision to reveal her sexuality in 1994 was met with death threats and hatred which have continued to the current day. Sandi, who is married to psychotherapist wife Debbie Toksvig, said: “I don’t want to be too serious. I have had a lot of death threats.

“My wife and I, when we got married I had to have a close protection police officer beside me. It is still ongoing. But you can’t let that rule your life. I have been threatened twice since I have been in Cambridge in the last month. But also I’ve been hugged a lot. That is the risk you take. The modern world is weird. I don’t do social media of any kind as it is not real. It is not the way to have a conversation.”

Sandi and Debbie have been married for 30 years (LightRocket via Getty Images)

Sandi previously had to go into hiding with her family following death threats (Getty Images)

Sandi, who has children Jesse, Megan, and Theo with ex-partner Peta Stewart, added: “The best thing to do with homophobes is to be charming and funny. They hate it. I feel sorry for people who don’t like our community, who don’t know much about it. We have to keep telling them how the world functions.”

The star revealed in a speech at the Cambridge Union last year, which can be seen on YouTube, that she will retire from BBC show QI in five years.

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She said: “We have five more years to go before we finish the alphabet and then I will be 70 and then I will retire. The thing I have learned from QI is that more women should be in charge of quiz shows. Famous people are nervous when they do the show. I have learned that knowledge is not something you lord over people. Famous people do want a hug before they do the show as they are scared.”

Sandi has spoken in the past about death threats. On Desert Island Discs in 2015, she said: “We had to go into hiding for about two weeks and during that time, I was terrified that I had done a terrible thing to my children.

“I would give my life for my three children. It was truly, genuinely frightening.’

Of her younger self, she said: “I went through some very dark times. People say, ‘when did you decide you were gay?’ and you think, ‘when did you decide you were heterosexual?’ It’s not a decision, it’s something you gradually realise about yourself.”

Mark Jefferies