One of the best parts of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here is when the stars’ walls begin to come down and they give each other, and the viewer, an insight into their personal lives. The jungle often becomes a safe space for these celebs, and so far this series Oti Mabuse and Barry McGuigan have both opened up about their personal losses— Oti losing her brother to suicide when he was a teen and Barry’s daughter Danika passing awayafter a fight with cancer in 2019.
When news broke that Reverend Richard Coles was heading into the jungle, many fans began wondering if he’ll open up about his late husband, David Oldham. Here's everything you need to know about him, including his tragic passing.
When did Reverend Richard Coles meet his husband, David Oldham?
Richard Coles— who first found fame alongside Jimmy Somerville as the 1980’s synth-pop duo, The Communards— met David in 2007. David, a younger man from Manchester, was working as an A&E nurse when he visited Coles to seek advice about joining the clergy. They spoke for hours, and afterwards David sent a text that made plain their unspoken romantic attraction. The pair entered into a civil partnership in 2010, by which point they were both Anglican priests, with David taking Richard's surname.
Initially, the pair said they were in a celibate civil partnership, but Richard recently revealed that this was a lie in order to keep their jobs as a vicars. He said, 'I felt sometimes like I was in the resistance and they were the Gestapo. I mean, I’m overstating it, but what I did feel is that they had no moral cause, so I didn’t feel that I had a moral obligation at all.
He added, 'And I’m not the first person to find themselves obliged to lie for institutional reasons in the Church of England.'
Was Reverend Richard Coles's husband, David Oldham, famous?
While Richard’s star began to rise with various TV appearances and his BBC Radio 4 show Saturday Live, David stayed mainly out of the spotlight. In his Twitter bio, he described himself as a ‘carer to five delinquent yet delightful dachshunds, a dilettante potter, designer, gardener and narrow boat enthusiast.’ Richard said, ‘One of the problems David had was that the public life I led meant that people felt they had a sort of claim on me, and in ways that cut across his claim as my significant other. Literally, sometimes people would push him out of the way. He was very good about it. He made a joke about it. But I think it must have been very irritating for him.’
How did Reverend Richard Coles's husband, David Oldham, die?
David and Richard lived together in a civil partnership for twelve years until David’s untimely death. In the year leading up to his passing, an alcohol addiction made him sicker and sicker with liver disease and his sleep turned erratic, and the couple stopped sharing a bed. Richard announced his partner’s passing on 17thDecember, 2019. He wrote on X (formerly Twitter), ‘I’m very sorry to say that @RevDavidColes has died. He had been ill for a while. Thanks to the brilliant teams who looked after him at @KettGeneral. Funeral details to follow. The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.’
In Richard’s 2021 book The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss, he revealed that the cause of David’s death was alcoholism. Richard wrote, ‘It was really, really tough to see somebody you love destroy himself. It is like someone is drowning and you throw them a lifebelt but they are just not taking the lifebelt. And I did try everything I could think of to help him stop drinking, and in fairness to him he did try too, but it was too much for him.’
When did Reverend Richard Coles write a book about his husband?
Richard began writing the book shortly after David’s passing, revealing, ‘David would have hated this book. Hated it. I just decided, well, it can’t hurt him now – and it might help other addicts’ spouses who are going through similar things. When David was at his worst it was so gruelling, so difficult for me as his husband, I felt like I was falling through space sometimes. And what I discovered, once he died, was how much I wanted to express what it had been like for me.’
On his death, Richard said, ‘There is this feeling of liberation. Partly because life with David was sometimes really tough, and you don’t have to do the tough stuff anymore. Partly because there are those smaller unexpected pleasures, like eating Indian takeaways, which he hated, or being able to watch football to my heart’s content.
‘But none of these pleasures are on the same level as the loss, which is immense. Which comes at you from behind you and below you and rises up and swallows you. You know, I got completely overwhelmed at the supermarket the other day – all because I saw a jar of pickled herrings. I would never go near a pickled herring. I couldn’t eat a pickled herring. But David loved them. I just had to take a minute. I felt his loss so grievously, then.’
Who is Reverend Richard Coles in a relationship with now?
In June 2023, Richard revealed that he has found love again after David Coles’s tragic passing four years prior. His new partner is actor Richard Cant, son of the late actor and children’s TV presenter Brian Cant. He opened up about how 'lucky' he was to have found love again to GK Barry in the I'm a Celeb jungle, and revealed that he had met his new partner on a dating app.
Sarah O'Byrne is a News and Entertainment writer at Bauer Media. She regularly contributes to Grazia, heat, Closer, Crime Monthly, Bella and Yours.