Stephen Fry talks serving time and ‘extraordinary experience’ with cellmate

Stephen Fry was admittedly left taken aback when he learned that his prison cellmate was illiterate. The 65-year-old English actor spent four months in prison whilst on remand when he was 17. The actor and broadcaster was sent to prison after stealing a credit card and ’embarking on a countrywide spending spree’. Speaking in a new interview with Radio Times , Stephen said he shared his cell with a ‘young Welsh man’ who to his own disbelief was ‘illiterate’ He said: ‘I started to teach him to read and write, and that was an extraordinary experience. I was known as ‘the Professor’ in prison.’ Stephen Fry admits taught his cellmate to read (Image: Getty ) The writer also discussed his sexuality and shared that after reading The Trials of Oscar Wilde by H Montgomery Hyde, he realised he was gay. The broadcaster admitted: ‘As I read, I started to gasp and pant and feel simultaneously triumphant and terribly, terribly worried. I suddenly understood this extraordinary man and that his nature was the same as mine. As soon as I read that, I knew that I was gay.’ Despite his prison stint as a teenager, Stephen has enjoyed an impressive career and went on to become a writer, actor, comedian and director, with his credits including Blackadder and the film series adaptation of The Hobbit. Stephen Fry went to prison at 17 for stealing a credit card (Image: Getty) Full interview on the Radio Times podcast (Image: The Radio Times) In an interview with Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast he candidly spoke about his childhood. Stephen shared: “I was a deeply difficult child that my parents took me to a psychiatrist when I was 14. “That started my journey into my mental health.” “I started doing weird things,” the actor explained. “I was sent to prison, so the best I could do after a disastrous childhood, I decided, was now concentrate on getting into Cambridge.’ “That changed everything. I want to please people. And if I don’t please them, I get upset. I’ve done it wrong.” The broadcaster said much of his disruptive behaviour as a teenager was explained later in his life by his bipolar disorder – when he was diagnosed at 37. You can read the full interview in this week’s Radio Times out now.