Rupert Everett: Gay Poet Oscar Wilde Was 'Better Than Christ' and More Human
British actor Rupert Everett believes that Irish poet and playwrite Oscar Wilde was "better" than Jesus Christ because he showed his human side.
Everett, who is openly gay, portrays Wilde in the film "The Happy Prince," and told The Telegraph in an interview on Sunday that he finds the poet to be more convincingly human than Jesus.
Everett talked about Wilde's reputation as a "gay Christ figure," and said:
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"For me, he's better than Christ because he's half God with his talent, and his human side — which Christ never quite pulled off except having his feet washed by Mary Magdalene — is very human."
"Greed, ego, vanity, snobbery. All the things that brought him down, I find tremendously appealing and touching, because most of us have all these qualities and most of us get away with it."
Everett argued that the most exciting part of the poet's life "is after prison and the idea of this fallen star living in cheap hotels, cadging drinks on the boulevard, toothless, smelling of sweat and pee a little bit — the last great vagabond of the 19th century — it's an amazing story," he added.
In 2017, Wilde received a posthumous pardon by the U.K. along with 50,000 other men for being imprisoned over homosexual acts in the past.
"The Happy Prince" tells the story of Wilde in his final days, after having been imprisoned for two years between 1895 and 1897 for homosexual acts, which were considered "gross indecency" at the time.
Everett has made other controversial statements, including in 2016 when he suggested that pop singer Madonna was the anti-Christ.
"Being brought up a Catholic, and in a monastery, I used to have visions of Our Lady as a child. I thought: I'm meant to kill Madonna because she was the anti-Christ," he said in an interview at the time.
Madonna was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Pope Francis' predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, following years of performances considered blasphemous for Catholics.
Still, speaking on social issues, Everett has said that he does believe it is best for children to have both a mother and a father, rather than two fathers.
"[I] can't think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads," Everett told The Sunday Times Magazine in 2012. "Some people might not agree with that. Fine! That's just my opinion.
"I'm not speaking on behalf of the gay community. In fact, I don't feel like I'm part of any 'community.' The only community I belong to is humanity and we've got too many children on the planet, so it's good not to have more," he said then.
