(from www.gaynz.com)
Stephen Fry has revealed the homophobia he found while filming a documentary about the lives of gay people around the world triggered a bout of deep depression.
His two-part BBC2 documentary series Stephen Fry: Out There will screen next week in the UK.
It looks at the lives of gay people around the world, from US to Uganda, and their experiences of homophobia.
Fry has told the Press Association he is now feeling “much better”, but said he found it uncomfortable to watch the scenes recorded in the build-up to his low-point.
He says he can identify the moment where it all became too much.
“There’s a moment in the film where I recognised that this was the last moment we filmed before this wave of depression came over me, and I was idiotic or victim enough, or whatever one wants to call it, of this mad compulsion.
“It seems mad now because I’m on a course of medication for the first time in my life that really seems to be working so it does feel really strange. But at the same time I can recognise that moment.
“And I won’t say what it is because I don’t want people to look out for it then, but of course it makes my heart sink a little because I think that’s so odd because it’s such a really wonderfully important part of the film and it’s a very pivotal moment.
“And I asked myself if there was a connection between the despair that swept over me whether it was triggered by or at least reinforced by the despair that swept over me at the sheer weight of official homophobia that I was experiencing at that particular point of filming.
“But I’m glad to say at the moment things are much better.”
Fry added: “Homophobia stands on a tripod of three preposterous lies – a decent and normal person can see they’re lies but somebody who is either themselves poor or feels dispossessed or is looking for someone to blame can follow those lies.
“One that it’s a choice, two that we want to recruit and the third even more pernicious one is that we’re after children in, not just recruitment, but that we actually want to abuse them – and that is just wickedness.
“There’s no more logic in that than saying heterosexuality is wicked because of paedophilia of men against little girls.”