Richard Armitage

Richard Armitage is a queer British actor who publicly discussed his sexuality for the first time in April 2023, in interviews with Radio Times and the Evening Standard timed to the release of the Netflix series Obsession (2023), sharing that he had first come out to "anybody who mattered" at age 19 but had chosen not to discuss it publicly, preferring to "let the work speak for itself." He declined to apply a specific label to his identity, describing his experience in terms of a gradual and ongoing self-understanding: "I love the idea that whatever gender, sexuality, the fluidity of who you love, how you identify, is not fixed." In the same interviews he confirmed he has a male partner. Armitage is best known internationally for his physical and charismatic portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy (2012), as well as Richard Thornton in the BBC adaptation of North & South (2004), which became a beloved period drama. He has also starred in Spooks, Strike Back, The Stranger (2020), and Obsession, a Netflix drama exploring sexual obsession.