A Village Affair Vogue Model Sophie Ward Talks About Leaving Her Husband for a Woman
Fifteen years ago, actress and former Vogue model Sophie Ward became a gay heroine overnight after she came out as a lesbian.
At the time, Sophie was married to a man and had two young children. What was so extraordinary about the news was that it came just a few months after she appeared in the hit TV drama, A Village Affair, which told the story of a husband, his wife and their children who moved to a new village – and the wife (played by Sophie) found herself falling in love with another woman (played by Kerry Fox).
Lesbians up and down the country watched A Village Affair in awe. It was one of THE most important lesbian events on TV of the nineties. Back in those days, lesbians were seriously deprived of quality drama that had any relevance to their lives. A Village Affair was up there with the TV adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (which had been televised several years previously). There really wasn’t much else, apart from one lesbian kiss on TV soap Brookside...
Little did we know that Sophie was herself privately struggling with long-held gay feelings at the time, and that it was only a matter of months before she would meet her future life-long partner and wife Rena, accept that she was a lesbian, and take the brave step of coming out publicly.
Since that time, Ward has continued to enjoy a rich and rewarding career on TV, film and the stage. She recently appeared in the latest movie adaptation of Jane Eyre, which was released in cinemas last month, and she has been filming for the BBC TV drama Hustle. Sophie will also be returning as Lady Hoxley in the third series of Land Girls which will be broadcast by the BBC next month.
Not many people will know that Sophie is also an aspiring novelist, and that she has been busy writing her first book which she hopes to complete in the next few weeks!
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