Laurence Fox is "frightened" about losing his career following the fierce backlash he received after his appearance on ‘Question Time’.
The 41-year-old actor sparked controversy on the BBC current affairs show in January during a heated debate about Meghan Markle and racism in the UK, during which he insisted "it’s so easy to throw the card of racism at everybody and it’s really starting to get boring now".
Following his comments, the actors’ union Equity denounced him as "a disgrace to our industry", and Laurence – who has two sons, 11-year-old Winston and Eugene, six, with his ex-wife Billie Piper – began taking sleeping pills for insomnia because he "thought [his] career was over".
Asked if he was frightened by the response, he said: "I am still frightened. [I’ve] been in some pretty tricky positions in my life and I’ve come out of them alive."
Laurence also said he was dumped by his girlfriend over his comments, and claimed the ordeal "caused a lot of stress" among his family.
The ‘Victoria’ actor even received criticism from Richard Ayoade – who is married to Laurence’s sister Lydia – but said he and the half-Nigerian writer-director are "all friends now".
Laurence explained: "[Richard said]: ‘You have never encountered racism.’ [To which I replied]: ‘Yeah, of course I have. I’ve encountered racism from black people towards me, when I was working in Kenya [as a safari driver] for seven months. It’s the way you’re spoken to – racism can be deferential.’ "
And the star has insisted he isn’t "denying racism", but thinks the word has been "demeaned" so that it "means nothing".
He added: "I’m not denying privilege and I’m not denying racism. Of course racism exists, but if you demean it as a word, like privilege, it means nothing after a while."
Laurence believes the term is used so often that his children don’t understand what it means, as he claims they believe it is "racist" to say their mother is a "better cook" than him.
Speaking to The Sunday Times magazine, he said: "[One of my son’s recently said] ‘Sorry if this is racist, but Mum’s a better cook than you.’ They’re just constantly being filled with it at school all the time. So I just unfill them with it on the way home in the car.
"If you want to eviscerate me for having an opinion, then there’s something extremely wrong with our culture. And if it takes some k****ish d***head, half-educated t**y like me [to point this out] … I can barely put a thought together, I’m that ill-educated. I mean, I went to Harrow."
Laurence Fox ‘frightened’ about losing career
