The Untold Truth Of Alan Cumming

This article includes references to child abuse, suicide, and mental health issues. 

Alan Cumming is not the typical leading man type. However, the multi-talented character actor has long established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry. Never one to play it safe, in an essay for In Style in 2021 he suggested that he's attracted to roles that challenge him as an artist while providing an opportunity for fun. "I've always tumbled through life," he wrote. "I've been open to new opportunities and said yes to ones that felt good." So far, going with his instincts seems to be paying off.

The classically-trained Scottish actor is arguably best known for playing Eli Gold on "The Good Wife," but he also starred in the CBS drama "Instinct" and won a Tony award in 1998 for his career-defining performance on Broadway in "Cabaret." The unapologetically authentic star is passionate about living his life on his own terms, and he has no qualms about saying what he wants and doesn't want.

Living your life in the spotlight can mean there are troubling times nobody knows about. Cumming has seen more than his share of that. Forget about what you think you know about this eclectic actor because we're here to set the record straight on all of it. 

Alan Cumming was born in 1965 in Perthshire, Scotland. Per The Guardian, he grew up on a large, remote estate where his father worked as a forester. On an episode of "Desert Island Discs," the actor described his intense fear of his father, who he alleged could be extraordinarily violent and unpredictable — never knowing when he might strike. 

"That's the thing with a tyrant. [I was] constantly on edge," he said. "I could tell by the clack of his boots, the way he opened the door." The actor went on to explain that much of the abuse he endured was focused on his hair and appearance. So much so that as an adult he couldn't get his hair cut without vomiting. As a child, he was too ashamed to tell anyone about what he was experiencing. Luckily, Cumming noted, "My dad didn't break my spirit."

If there is a bright side to all of this, it's that the experience helped him to hone his craft. "I feel that the qualities you need to deal with someone who is an adult who is abusing you, and you are powerless, are good qualities for being an actor," he suggested on the podcast. Speaking to The Irish Times, he insisted that while he's dealt with his trauma and recovered from it, that healing isn't such a simple fix. "It is like a wound that is never going to go away," he explained.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

At 16, Alan Cumming left school. Speaking to Terry Gross for NPR, he explained that he didn't really have a plan. "I thought, what am I going to do? ... I was going to be sort of chucked out of the house unless I got a job." With his mother's help, he landed a gig as a sub-editor at a publishing house. On "Desert Island Discs" he explained that part of that job included interviewing pop stars for a TV magazine called TOPS. It was a slightly smaller operation than some of his future Hollywood gigs. "There was only one phone in this whole magazine," he said. "And we were only allowed to use it after 1pm because the calls were cheaper."

But the aspiring actor was just biding his time. Per The Irish Times, at 17 he began his studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and explained that the school was his only aspiration. "I never had a Plan B," Cumming explained. The actor kicked off his professional career in the U.K. with roles on screen and in theater, before setting his sights on Hollywood. One of his first films in the states was "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion." As he told Closer Weekly, he was baffled as to how he got cast as an American. "I didn't know what a prom was! We didn't have proms in Scotland, or high school reunions," he explained.

When he was first approached by "Skyfall" director Sam Mendes to play the role of the Emcee in "Cabaret," Alan Cumming wasn't interested. He told "Desert Island Discs," "I was just a little snobby dopey boy. Musicals were seen then as a bit more frilly and frothy, and I certainly felt like that too." Having just performed "Hamlet" on the London stage, Cumming also felt the role was a step down for a serious thespian like himself. "It was just my youthful arrogance," he told NPR. " ... and also fear."

Luckily, Mendes' more raw approach to the classical musical persuaded Cumming to join the cast. In 1998, he then made his Broadway debut in "Cabaret," winning a Tony and several other awards for his performance. It was a role that changed his life, telling Salon the whole experience felt almost incomprehensible. 

"I hadn't been to New York. My first time in New York is to star in a Broadway musical," he said. "It's like a movie." In 2014, Cumming and Mendes teamed up again for a revival of the show, with "Fosse/Verdon" star Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles, per The Los Angeles Times. Critics warmly welcomed Cumming back. In their rave review of the show, Time Out wrote of the actor's standout performance, "Cumming is the corroded soul of the show; he haunts it and intrudes on it, magnetically mercurial."

Per the Advocate, Alan Cumming came out as bisexual in 1998. 17 years later, he told the outlet, "My sexuality has never been black and white; it's always been gray." Although he's been married to illustrator designer Grant Shaffer since 2007, the actor explained that doesn't mean that he's gay. "I'm with a man, but I haven't closed myself off to the fact that I'm still sexually attracted to women," he told the outlet. He was previously married to "Outlander" actor Hilary Lyon and dated actor Saffron Burrows, who is also openly bisexual.

Unsurprisingly, Cumming has long been a vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, including highlighting a need for greater equality for transgender people, telling the Advocate, "The LGBT community has left the T part behind a bit." Writing for The Times, the actor issued a plea for people to reckon with their own phobias and prejudices. Stating his opinion that transgender people currently suffer the same setbacks and struggles as the gay community once did, he wrote, "We all want equality, don't we? We should all have equal respect, equal pay, equal rights." 

As for those who may feel a certain way when someone includes their preferred pronouns at the end of emails, Cumming told The Guardian, "I think 'F**k you.' These people are being kind to you and doing you a favor by telling you how they want to be defined."

In 1985, Alan Cumming and Hilary Lyon said "I do" — but according to the actor, he may have gotten hitched for all the wrong reasons. Looking back on their eight-year marriage, Cumming told Kate Thornton on the "White Wine Question Time" podcast, "I was so young when I got married. I left home to get away from my father, I got into a marriage to feel secure ... But I felt I was seeking the familiar."

Unfortunately for Cumming, the familiarity of his parent's rocky relationship was the last thing he needed. The "GoldenEye" actor explained that although he wanted his folks to split up, once they did, it forced him to face a lot of painful things in his life, including his father's abuse. With his own relationship, he was determined to prove that he could have a long-lasting healthy relationship. When it failed, he was devastated.

"It was the most adult grown-up thing that I had done independently," he told the podcast about his first marriage. "And I wanted to make it a success. I needed it to be sure. And for it to work." As for Lyon, she's been married to Matt Ponting since 2001. When The Scotsman asked about her famous ex, she replied, "We are good friends now. It's taken a long time to get to this point, though."

When the opportunity to play political strategist Eli Gold on "The Good Wife" came to him, Cumming told The Daily Beast he wasn't interested. "I hadn't seen the show. I read [the script], glanced through it, and didn't really get it." Luckily, his management team did. "They'd say, 'This is a really great character for you. It would be a big mistake not to do it." The role was supposed to be a one-off guest-starring stint. After seven seasons and two Emmy nominations for his role, it obviously became something much bigger and one of the actor's most beloved performances. "I love him," he told the outlet in 2011. "I love the writing. I love the range of what I get to do with this character." 

As he told The Guardian five years later, the opportunity also gave Cumming the chance to mature as an actor, changing people's perceptions of his capabilities and range. He told the outlet that he never expected he would even be tapped for a role like this. "I was like: 'What? You're casting me?' I'd never really played a human being before, much less a middle-aged man in a suit." And that, he explained, is exactly why agents and managers get paid the big bucks. "Because sometimes they give really good advice," he noted. Eli Gold would likely agree.

Impressively, Alan Cumming was almost cast in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" as Gilderoy Lockhart. Per The Telegraph, Rupert Everett was also considered for the role, and the two were asked to screen test. However, Cumming was told they could only pay him a limited amount for the job. As it turns out, the two actors shared an agent, and the "Cabaret" star found out they offered Everett a higher pay. "I didn't turn it down, I told them to f**k off!" he explained. He assumed Everett landed the role, but that didn't happen either. "They f****ng gave it to Kenneth Branagh, came out of the shadows," the actor said. 

A similar testy Hollywood situation arrived on the set of the 1999 film "Eyes Wide Shut." In his 2021 memoir "Baggage," (via The Mirror) Cumming recalled a tricky first meeting with legendary director Stanley Kubrick. As the actor recalled, the British filmmaker was pointedly shocked and annoyed to discover that the Scottish actor wasn't actually American, per his audition tapes. "Something in me snapped," he wrote " ... 'F*** you, old man,' I thought to myself ... But I actually said, 'Yeah, that's because I'm an actor, Stanley.'" Regardless, he stated that Kubrick turned out to be a funny and interesting guy beneath his prickly demeanor and that he enjoyed his brief time on set making the film.

At 28-years-old, Alan Cumming believed he experienced a nervous breakdown. Per CTV News, he and his wife Hilary Lyon were trying to conceive, and he worried the sins of his father would come back to haunt him. During an interview published by the outlet, he explained, "That will never go away — that worry. Because I am my father's (son). I have madness on both sides of my family."

His dark thoughts persisted for some time, with his mental health impacting his everyday life. In an interview with "CBS Mornings" about his memoir "Baggage," he recalled feeling despondent while he auditioned for a part in the 1995 Bond film, "GoldenEye." "It was one of the worst days of my life actually," he said. "I felt really, really, really low. I just actually now think, 'Oh you poor little thing, you could've said I am feeling, you know, suicidal today."

Things turned around when he landed the role of Russian computer whiz Boris Grishenko. While he was writing "Baggage," he came to the realization that his career in Hollywood may have actually saved his life. It certainly helped shape his perspective. "I have this sort of mantra, which is 'Cancel, continue.' When something bad happens I think, okay that happened, we can't change that, let's move on," he told the show.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Given his exceptional career on stage and on screen, Alan Cumming's favorite filmmaking experience is one you probably didn't see coming. "I am often asked ... and I always answer Spice World," he wrote in an excerpt from "Baggage," per The Guardian. "So, that summer running around London, laughing, and frolicking with five girls who were at the very zenith of their pop princess potency, being taught the dance moves of the Spice Girls' songs by the Spice Girls themselves, was golden for me," he added. He loved that each singer sent him a lovely thank you message for being in the flick, especially Emma Bunton who called him a "Baby Spice" boy.

Cumming also has plenty of tea to spill about his other various adventures in movies beyond "Spice World." While shooting "Emma" with Toni Colette and Gwyneth Paltrow in 1996, for instance, he discovered the "Hereditary" star had never drank a martini before. Luckily, he had a solution to that problem, as he detailed in "Baggage" (via i News). The "Josie and the Pussycats" star took his co-stars for a boozy dinner at their hotel. However, he swiped an antique butter dish for giggles. Next thing he knew, the manager was threatening to throw them all out, including Paltrow and then-boyfriend Brad Pitt. "I couldn't believe my Martini-induced moment of hotel crockery redistribution could lead to the sexiest man alive being ousted from [his] love nest!" he wrote.

In 2007, after dating for two years, Alan Cumming and Grant Shaffer got married at the Royal Naval College in London. In a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the actor shared, "Not only are we so happy to be able to celebrate our love for each other, but also to be able to do it in a country that properly recognizes the rights of same-sex couples." In 2012, after the state of New York legalized same-sex marriage, the pair exchanged vows one more time with a bash at the Soho Grand Hotel, per People.

In an interview with Closer Weekly, Cumming revealed that he met Shaffer through mutual friends in New York and that their personalities seemed like a perfect fit. "He's lovely, kind, and hilarious, but he's also the first person who hasn't wanted to change me," he said. "We respect each other and we were a bit older when we met, so you know yourself more and are more respectful." 

According to IMDb, Shaffer, a San Francisco native, is also involved in entertainment, having worked as a storyboard artist on a number of film projects, including "Zoolander," "Closer" and "Wall Street." If you're a fan of the Madonna, chances are he created storyboards for some of your favorite music videos, as he worked on "Celebration," "Bedtime Story" and "Rain."

In 2018, Alan Cumming made history when he was cast in the CBS police drama "Instinct" as Dr. Dylan Reinhart — the first openly gay leading character in a network drama, according to Vulture. The actor told Pink News he was looking forward to taking on the role, and that it wouldn't focus on him being gay. "What's refreshing about this is there's a successful relationship and they're supportive of each other. And being gay is also the fourth or fifth most interesting thing about this character," he said.

In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter, "Instinct" showrunner Michael Rauch heralded the show as groundbreaking for LGBTQ representation, writing, "Never in the history of television has there been a more important show than Instinct!" Not everyone agreed. Writing for Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz suggested the network may have edited the gayness out of Cumming's character. As Rauch shared at the Split Screens Festival with the critic, test audiences were turned off by even the most casual scenes with Dylan and his husband Andy, which may have minimized some on-screen representation.

"Instinct" ran for two seasons on CBS, and subsequently, more LGBTQ characters on TV have followed. Cumming would just like to see sexual orientation not be an issue anymore. In 2019, he told People, "We have to get to the point where we just tell stories about people and one of the facets of them is that they are LGBTQ or whatever."

In 2016, at the New York Public Library promoting his book, "You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures," Alan Cumming told the audience how he felt about a certain presidential candidate at the time. Per The Guardian, he said, "If Donald Trump is the president of this country, we are f***ed, ladies and gentlemen, seriously." The "Burlesque" actor added that he felt the political popularity of the former star of "The Apprentice" was a sad reflection of the lack of education at play in modern America. As he'd later open up about, it didn't take long for Trump supporters to clap back.

In a 2021 interview on "The Cultural Coven” podcast, Cumming described being on the receiving end of some radical backlash for voicing his political opinions. "At the end of the Trump era, I was really scared. I was getting death threats for posting things. It was a really terrible time." He remained hopeful that the country seemed to be heading back in the right direction. But for people in marginalized communities, he knows nothing is guaranteed. "We've always had to fight, and fight to retain our rights."

In the 1997 film "Buddy," Cumming formed a special bond with one of his co-stars: Tonka the chimpanzee. In 2022, PETA reported that the actor was supporting a campaign in searching for the lost primate. The famous chimp was among a group scheduled to be rescued from the Missouri Primate Foundation and transferred to a sanctuary. When PETA showed up to make the transfer, it was claimed that Tonka was dead. A judge determined that the story didn't add up, and left it to the animal rights organization to determine what really happened to him.

Cumming even made a generous offer in hopes of finding his old friend, agreeing to double PETA's reward — up to $20,000 — for any information that leads to the whereabouts of Tonka. "During the months we filmed together, baby Tonka and I became good friends, playing and grooming each other and just generally larking about," Cumming said in a statement shared by the organisation.

He further urged someone to come forward with information. "It's horrible to think he might be in a cage in a dark basement somewhere or have met some other fate," he stated. The vegan actor also partnered with PETA on its 2016 "Not a Dairy Queen" vegan eating campaign. In a campaign video, he highlighted the environmental benefits of veganism alongside how the diet has improved his health, stating, "I feel much better ... I feel cleaner. I feel younger."

When Alan Cumming was working too much to have a social life, he figured out a way to bring his social life to work: His own hotspot. He told Variety, "'Club Cumming' started in my dressing room because I wanted the party to come to me." He and promoter Daniel Nardici then turned the backstage parties into a trendy downtown bar. Per the New York Post, the East Village cabaret club opened in 2017, and celebrity guests such as Emma Stone, Paul McCartney, and Billie Jean King have all made guest appearances. "It's like we're endlessly throwing a party," the actor told the outlet. As for the club's vibe, performer Michael Musto explained, "It puts the spotlight back on offbeat culture and quirky performance, but also has the party spirit."

On any given night you might find the actor, who lives nearby, behind the bar mixing cocktails. "I've always longed to be a bartender," he told Variety.  Cumming further described the joint as being the perfect fusion of an LGBTQ+ club and a downtown dive bar. Like the character he played in "Cabaret," Cumming welcomes strangers to leave their troubles behind and enjoy the show at "Club Cumming." Like New York City itself, the actor mused that his club would remain a glorious work in progress — always in flux, and offering something new and different. "That's why we come here," he told the outlet about the city. "That's why we like it."

He may love New York City, but clearly, he still holds a torch for Scotland. In 2021, while promoting the launch of his latest memoir in his home country, Alan Cumming opened up about the trauma he endured in the U.S. following his comments about President Trump. In an interview with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (via The Scotsman) he explained his growing unease with living in America began at the start of the pandemic. "I was actually scared that I was going to be attacked because I was getting all these death threats," he said.

The actor added that he's sensitive to the constant tensions in the country. So much so that he's considered moving back to Scotland for good. "Being out of the country for so long has given me a really good perspective and understanding of the values I have," he told Stugeron. "I feel very formed by being Scottish. I really do want to come back."

Speaking to The Sunday Post, he noted that there's a good chance he and his husband might relocate. The actor explained that living in Scotland for a few months while working on a project gave him a taste of what it might be like to live back there full time. "I'm wanting to be this Scottish Greta Garbo reclusive showbiz figure in my later years," he said. "I do see it as an arc of coming home."