Tom Hardy Calls Out Gay Reporter for Invading His Privacy

Earlier this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, actor Tom Hardy shut down a gay reporter who ambushed him about his sexuality. Hardy now describes the reporter’s question as “annoying” and “humiliating,” and calls him out for invading his privacy.

Graeme Coleman, from the LGBT publication Daily Xtra, asked the actor during a Q&A about the upcoming film Legend last Sunday, “In the film, your character, Ronnie, is very open about his sexuality. But given interviews you’ve done in the past, your own sexuality seems a bit more ambiguous. Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to media about their sexuality?”

After a brief exchange, Hardy abruptly ended the line of questioning, before moving on to another topic. The actor sat down with Entertainment Weekly on Thursday to talk about Coleman’s intrusive question.

“That really, really annoyed me,” Hardy told EW. “It was just the inelegance of being asked in a room full of people … Now I’m happy to have a conversation, a discussion, at a reasonable time about anything. I’m confident in my own sexuality, and I’m also confident in my own being and talking about any issue you want to talk about it. But there is a time and a place for that.”

Hardy also told the publication: “I found it very humiliating for somebody to decide that on his dime and his time, to openly and inelegantly pursue a line of questioning which I could only sense at the moment — which was quite awkward — that it was zeroing in on a reaction from me that would become a topic of discussion that had nothing to do really, really to do with what was there.”

Hardy has been asked about his sexuality for years, after admitting in 2010 that he experimented with other men when he was younger. The 38-year-old told EW, “I’m quite sensitive and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people.”

“Should I come out of the closet when I’m not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that’s a lie, to do the right thing. Or, if I say no, then I’m homophobic?” said Hardy

The actor concluded, “Bless him, he’s young. But at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that. And it’s like why? Whose business is it anyway and isn’t that the point?”