Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Queen Elizabeth‘s cousin and great-great-great grandson to Queen Victoria, has come out as bisexual. This makes him the very first member of the royal family to come out publicly. He told the Daily Mail,

“I have struggled with my sexuality and in some ways I still do; it has been a real journey to reach this point. I buried it.“

At the age of 53, Mountbatten has found new love when his partner James Coyle, an airline steward, while on vacation to Switzerland. Wen the couple met, James was openly gay but Lord Ivar was still in the closet and not being transparent a real deal breaker for James who said,

“If I was going to be with him, it had to be in the open with friends and family. I wanted us to be honest, not to hide anything, not to be anything else.“

So, Lord Mountbatten came out and the pair have moved into Bridwell Park mansion together. A cozy a 120-acre estate in Devon. Mountbatten married Penny, his first wife, in 1994, but says he was completely open about his sexuality from the start.

“Penny was aware before we got married. I told her I was bisexual, that my attraction went both ways. “We had a lot of fun, we have three fabulous daughters and I don’t regret any stage of my life.“

Penny now lives 200 yards away and continues to visit her ex-husband and their three daughters are completely understanding about the new arrangement.

“I am a lot happier now, though I am still not 100 per cent comfortable with being gay. In an ideal world, I know the girls would like their mother and father still to be together, but they love their 21st Century family that we have built too. Their father has a boyfriend. It’s that complicated and that simple, but finding James means I will not have to lie to anyone or grow old on my own.“

Lord Ivar Mountbatten and James Coyle

(via Gay Star News)