Here’s the Scoop On Jonathan Bailey’s Love Life
Jonathan Bailey is an English actor who plays the role of Viscount Anthony Bridgerton in the Netflix drama Bridgerton. Bailey first gained recognition as Leonardo da Vinci in the BBC series Leonardo. He went on to appear in Doctor Who and Broadchurch before landing a recurring role in the BBC Two comedy W1A.
Bailey also starred in theatre productions such as South Downs and Company. He was nominated for the Outstanding Newcomer Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his performance in South Downs. Jonathan won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for his role in Company.
This piece will look at Jonathan’s dating life.
Jonathan has been in the public limelight for a decade, and during that time, he’s shown little interest in addressing his love life.
He rarely talks about his relationships in interviews, and despite being active on social media, his posts have little to do with his dating life. The most common assumption is that Jonathan is single. However, it might be that he is seeing someone, but he doesn’t want the world to learn his identity.
In late 2020, Jonathan sat down with Sir Ian McKellen for Attitude Magazine to talk about their experiences as gay actors. Bailey revealed that he first met Sir Ian in 2006 as he delivered a speech at Pride. At the time, Jonathan wasn’t ready do come out, but he was nevertheless inspired by Sir Ian’s speech.
As time went by, Jonathan grew more confident about his sexuality, but he faced opposition from an unlikely source – gay actors. Bailey told Sir Ian:
“The most conservative conversations I’ve had about me being honest about my sexuality in this day and age have come from gay men in the industry, ‘Oh, no, you can’t come out. You shouldn’t really do that. If you do that, you’re going to have to…’ This was at a stage where perhaps I was coming to terms with my own sexuality, I hadn’t necessarily hidden it…”
The negative advice baffled Jonathan, but it didn’t discourage him from embracing his sexuality. In Sir Ian’s time, coming out as gay would have wrecked an actor’s career. Hollywood has since become way more accepting of gay actors, but Jonathan feels like studios have turned sexuality into a commodity. He explained:
“And you get a script sent through and they’ll say, ‘Must be comfortable with talking about sexuality.’ So that is in one way a brilliant thing, because it’s saying we’re not encouraging anyone not to talk about sexuality, but it’s also showing that sexuality is being a commodity. That actually there needs to be this sense that studios are hiring gay actors to play either gay actors or straight.”