Alan Cumming says he was ‘surprised’ by the reaction to returning OBE honour: ‘I kind of broke the internet’
Actor marked his 58th birthday by returning the honour he received in 2009
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Your support makes all the difference.Alan Cumming has admitted he is “surprised” by the reaction to the news that he had returned his OBE.
On Friday (27 January), the actor shared an Instagram post announcing that he had recently returned the honour.
Cumming, 58, was awarded the OBE in the 2009 Queen’s birthday honours for his services to film, theatre and the arts, as well as his LGBT+ activism in the US.
Speaking about the reaction to the news, Cumming told The Hollywood Reporter: “I didn’t quite expect it to have such an international [impact] – I kind of broke the internet.”
He continued: “I knew there would be a little bit about it obviously, but not that much. It was kind of nuts. In Scotland, I was on the cover of all these newspapers today.”
Cumming returned the honour to mark his 58th birthday, explaining his reasons for doing so in his Instagram post sharing the news.
Cumming, who has US as well as British citizenship, said that he had received the OBE for “activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community, USA” at a time when same-sex marriage was still illegal in the US and the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was in place in the military.
The Good Wife star reshared the statement he gave in 2009, in which he said that receiving the honour made him “very proud to be British, and galvanised as an American”.
He explained, however, that public conversations about the monarchy and the British empire recently prompted by the Queen’s death had made him reassess the honour.
Cumming said that his eyes had been “opened” to the “way the British empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples across the world”.
“Also, thankfully, times and laws in the US have changed, and the great good the award brought to the LGBTQ+ cause back in 2009 is now less potent than the misgivings I have being associated with the toxicity of empire (OBE stands for Officer of the British Empire),” he continued.
Cumming is not the first actor to return their OBE. In December 2020, Welsh star Michael Sheen shared a statement in which he divulged that he had returned his own honour.
Sheen, 53, said that his decision came after he was asked to speak at the Learning and Work Institutes annual Raymond William Memorial Lecture in 2017.
The actor – who had been extensively studied Welsh history – realised he would be a “hypocrite” if he were to keep his OBE and still give the lecture about “the nature of the relationship between Wales and the British state, and the history of it”.
David Bowie and Paul Weller are also among the celebrities to have said either returned or said no to OBEs and other honours.
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