Tom Ford didn’t realise "homosexuality existed" until he was 17.
The ‘Nocturnal Animals’ filmmaker – who married Richard Buckley in 2014 after 28 years together – admits he had happy relationships with women when he was younger and only understood his sexuality when he went to New York as a teenager.
He said: "It was only when I went to New York when I was 17 that I realised I was gay. Before then, I had girlfriends, I was happy with them and they were happy with me. I suppose I didn’t really imagine that homosexuality even existed back then. Then I went to New York and it was, ‘Oh. Right. That’s what it is.’"
The 55-year-old designer is a father to four-year-old son Alexander and thinks he was right to wait until later in life to become a parent because he was "too drunk" to take on the care of someone else when he was younger.
He said: "I’m tired of being me and I’m ready to give more time to another person. That’s why I’m happy now to be a father. It’s absolutely the right time in my life, I couldn’t have had a son when I was 40 – I was probably too drunk, for one thing."
One of the biggest sacrifices the ‘A Single Man’ director has made since becoming a father is having fewer baths and he now takes just two or three a day.
He told Esquire magazine: "People have mocked me for the number of hot baths I take every day. It used to be five, but since I’ve become a father, it’s only two. Maybe three. But I definitely need to have a half-hour in the tub in the morning, after I get up at 6am, just to lie there and think. That’s my meditation."
Tom Ford: I didn’t realise ‘homosexuality existed’ until I was 17
