Screenwriter Russell T. Davies has shared details about his new relationship with model and waiter Oliver Cole, eight years after the death of his husband, Andrew Smith. Davies, 63, revealed on the Reasons To Be Joyful with Gaby Roslin podcast that he had not anticipated finding love again after Smith passed away in 2018.
"He's beautiful, isn't he? I'm very lucky," Davies said of Cole, 28. "It's been a year now – it's been a year since we started saying hello. Amazing. I'm very, very lucky."
Davies explained that after being widowed at 63, he had resigned himself to a future without romance. "You kind of think, well, that's it – genuinely. And at 63 you do think that's it, fine, I've had a lovely time. So for this to happen, it's a great surprise and very lovely."
He and Andrew Smith were together for two decades, entering a civil partnership in 2012. Smith, a customs officer, died in September 2018 at the age of 54, following a battle with a brain tumor diagnosed in 2011. Davies took two and a half years away from work to care for Smith.
Davies made his relationship with Cole public on Christmas Day last year. For Cole's 27th birthday in June, Davies brought him to the Doctor Who set, where Cole shared a photo from inside the TARDIS.
A friend of the couple told The Daily Mail that Cole has brought "a great deal of joy" into Davies's life and that they are "very much on the same wavelength."
In other comments, Davies recently revealed how his grief over Smith's death influenced his acclaimed Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which depicted the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. He stated that he incorporated elements of his personal loss, anger, and the experiences of illness into the writing of certain death scenes. He also reflected on the anger he felt at Smith's premature death at 54.
Davies has previously spoken about his fond memories of meeting Smith, stating that if he had a time machine, he would return to the night they first saw each other at the Cruz 101 club in Manchester on April 12, 1998.