Alan Cumming claims that his ex-wife Hilary Lyon initially expressed disbelief when he revealed he was a victim of childhood abuse.
Cumming, 60, recounted his challenging past in his 2014 memoir Not My Father’s Son. In the book, he revealed the emotional and physical abuse he endured from his father, Alex Cumming.
The Traitors host spoke about his relationship with Alex on the Tuesday, February 25 episode of the podcast “Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky.”
“In that situation, you’re so worried about being believed. … And some people didn’t,” Cumming said.
When host Monica Lewinsky asked who’d doubted him, he replied: “My ex-wife.”
Sharing his experience, Cumming mentioned that he believed someone, presumably Lyon, eventually came to trust his story. However, he recalled that the person also indicated that he used his past as an excuse to leave the marriage, causing some discontent at the time.
During a conversation with Lewinsky, 51, Cumming expressed the intense vulnerability one feels when not believed. He emphasized the difficulty of being in the presence of those who doubt your truth, stating it becomes unbearable to endure.
Cumming and the actress were married from 1985 to 1993. In 2007, he and artist Grant Shaffer tied the knot in a London civil ceremony. The couple later remarried in New York on their fifth wedding anniversary.
“I’d had a lot of bad failed relationships, and I was ready to not have a bad one,” Cumming told People earlier this month. “There’s certain things that happened in my life that have made me who I am and made me understand myself so much better.”
He explained, “By the time I met Grant — we started going out with each other when we were nearly 40 — all those things had sort of come out and I had done a lot of therapy. I was ready to be honest and open about what I could bring to the table and what I felt I wasn’t capable of. We started our relationship just being very honest with each other.”
Cumming revealed in his People interview that he’d married Lyon partly out of a need to achieve stability in his life.
“That’s not a great thing to do,” Cumming said. “I wouldn’t recommend that. I was 21 when I got married the first time. I knew I was bisexual when I was married the first time, as did my wife.”
The Good Wife actor has been open about his sexuality for quite some time, telling Oasis magazine circa 2007, “For me, bisexual is a good thing, because it’s in the middle. Even now that I have a husband, who’s a man, I still find lots of people attractive.”
Cumming celebrated his milestone 60th birthday on January 27.
“I live my life on my own terms,” Cumming wrote via Instagram at the time, posting a series of photos from his Nasty Pig campaign.
“I don’t want to conform or follow the pack or ‘act my age’ because that means allowing other people’s opinions to dictate my existence, and I have always found the more I stick to my guns and am prepared to be vulnerable and authentic and true to myself the more successful and happy I am.”
The Scottish Tony-and-Emmy winner has a long Hollywood resume that includes his role as political operator Eli Gold in the former CBS series The Good Wife as well as his appearances in the films Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Eyes Wide Shut. Since 2023, he’s hosted the hit Peacock show The Traitors, a mafia-style game with a prize of up to $250,000 and an eclectic group of celeb competitors.
