Sir Patrick Stewart, the celebrated actor who commanded the starship Enterprise and guided a generation of mutants, has died at the age of 86. He passed away at his Los Angeles home on Wednesday, 28 October, following what his spokesperson described as "a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia."
While best known for his iconic roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier, Stewart is being remembered within the LGBTQ+ community as a warm, outspoken, and unwavering ally. His activism was not one of grand gestures, but of consistent support, meaningful roles, and a deep, public love for his friend, Sir Ian McKellen.
A Profound Friendship
The bond between Stewart, a straight, married man, and McKellen, a co-founder of Stonewall UK, became a celebrated example of love transcending orientation. They met on the set of the first X-Men film in 1999 and their friendship quickly blossomed into something Stewart himself described as a love affair. "I know that I'm in a love affair with Ian," he once told ES Magazine.
This affection was on public display. In 2013, McKellen officiated Stewart’s wedding to singer Sunny Ozell. "I'm going to marry Patrick," McKellen cheekily announced on a talk show, before explaining he was getting certified to perform the ceremony in Massachusetts. The two friends went viral in 2015 with a photo of them holding hands outside New York's historic Stonewall Inn, and again when they shared a kiss on the red carpet at a film premiere. When asked about the kiss, Stewart was characteristically direct and charming: "It seemed appropriate! That is how we greet each other or say goodbye... Who says it's unacceptable? If you say it, it will happen!"
In a tribute posted on Instagram on Thursday, McKellen wrote of his friend: "He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love."
An Outspoken Advocate
Stewart consistently used his platform to champion LGBTQ+ rights. When The Guardian mistakenly described him as gay in 2014, he responded with humour and grace. "But @guardian I have, like, five or even SEVEN hetero friends and we totally drink beer and eat lots of chicken wings!" he tweeted. He later told The Advocate he was "utterly flattered" by the assumption, adding that McKellen had emailed him to say, "Congratulations!"
He was a vocal supporter of marriage equality, calling its legalisation in the UK "fantastic." In 2013, PFLAG National honoured him with its Straight for Equality in Entertainment award. His support wasn't just in words; in 2016, he delighted fans by appearing in full drag—pink satin dress, platinum blonde wig, and full make-up—for a screening of his show Blunt Talk.
His allyship was also tested. In 2015, he sparked controversy by defending, on free speech grounds, a Northern Irish bakery's right to refuse to make a cake with a pro-marriage-equality message. Facing criticism from the community, he issued a lengthy clarification on Facebook. "Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be further from the truth" than to assume he was anti-equality, he wrote. "I have long championed the rights of the LGBT community... both equality and freedom of speech are fundamental rights."
Representation on Screen
Long before it was common for major straight actors to do so, Stewart took on gay roles. In the 1995 AIDS-era romantic comedy Jeffrey, he played a witty interior decorator whose partner is HIV-positive. He also played gay characters in the sitcom Frasier and the 2014 film Match.
He and McKellen often drew parallels between the mutant struggle in X-Men and the fight for gay rights. "Mutants are like gays, they're cast out by society for no good reason," they told BuzzFeed, framing the ideological battle between Professor X and Magneto as a debate over assimilation versus radical action familiar to any civil rights movement.
This commitment continued into his final major role in Star Trek: Picard. In 2022, he pledged to encourage LGBTQ+ inclusion in the show, seeing it as a sign that "we are at long last beginning to grow up and become real adults who have an open view of the world." The show's final season delivered on that promise, ending with two queer women, Seven of Nine and Raffi, in command of the USS Enterprise.
Sir Patrick Stewart will appear one last time as Professor X in Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for release this December. He leaves behind a legacy not just of powerful performances, but of a life lived with integrity, humour, and a deep sense of humanity that extended to all.
