I’m A Celebrity's Richard Coles' tragic loss of husband and indulgent pop star lifestyle before finding God
As the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! final nears there are only six campmates left in the jungle, including Reverend Richard Coles. He entered the jungle as a late addition to camp alongside Love Island star Maura Higgins, who left four days before the viewers voted their king or queen of the jungle.
Richard did not begin his career as a clergyman, instead, he was one-half of the synth-pop duo The Communards and he went on to find God in the 1990s. Born in Northamptonshire, Richard knew he was gay as a public school choirboy but did not come out until his late teens.
He came out to his parents aged 16 and then had depression and tried to take his own life. Later. Richard met Jimmy Somerville, who at the time was part of the pop band Bronski Beat. Jimmy left Bronski Beat to join up with Richard and form The Communards. For the latest TV & Showbiz news, sign up to our newsletter.
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Their best-known hit Don’t Leave Me This Way was the biggest-selling single of 1986. During this time Richard and Jimmy led a very rock and roll lifestyle taking many drugs and enjoying a lot of partying.
They also argued a lot which led to the band splitting in 1988 and Richard continued his party lifestyle, particularly in Ibiza. He has referenced his partying lifestyle while in the jungle, telling his fellow campmates how he bought a speedboat and was so intoxicated at the time he never used it and to this day doesn't know where it is.
It was after coming back to the UK that Richard decided he needed to get help and stop using drugs. He said: "One morning I was on the Tube after I’d been out for three days.
"I was covered in dirt, smelt and looked a right state. People were looking at me with a mixture of pity and horror. Then I saw my reflection in the window opposite and thought, ‘Time to get a grip’.”
A psychiatrist suggested he see a priest, despite Richard’s lack of faith. “I suppose I’ve always had a very genuine curiosity about religion,” he explained. After this Richard started writing for the Catholic Heral and in 1990 he took a degree in theology at King’s College London.
That year, after going to mass at St Alban’s church in central London, he was “suddenly inspired with a new-found faith”. After a decade as a Roman Catholic, he returned to Anglicanism in 2001.
Four years later, he was ordained into the Anglican priesthood. In 2011 he became the vicar at St Mary the Virgin in Finedon, Northamptonshire, and retired from this role in 2022.
In 2007 Richard began a relationship with David Oldham, who was also an Anglican priest. In 2010, the couple entered into a civil partnership with David taking Richard's surname. Sadly, David died in 2019, when he was just 42, and Richard didn't reveal his partner's cause of death until two years later., when Richard revealed David had died from alcoholism.
In his book The Madness Of Grief: A Memoir Of Love And Loss, Richard opened up about his devastating loss. He talked about how it was "tough" to watch David "destroy himself" and said he did everything he could "think of to help him".
In June 2023, Richard revealed on ITV's Lorraine that he has found love again. His partner is actor Richard Cant, son of the late actor and children’s TV presenter Brian Cant.
