Suzy Eddie Izzard has revealed that she would like to have children one day, opening up about her mother's tragic death when she was a child. The stand-up comedian, actor, and activist, 64, spoke on the latest episode of the ADHD! No You're Not podcast with comedian Paul Whitehouse and his wife Dr. Mine Conkbayir.
Desire for Children and Coping with Grief
During the conversation, Suzy expressed a desire to have children but noted that despite having no close family, she no longer feels much grief. Her mother, Dorothy, a nurse and midwife, died from cancer in March 1968 when Suzy was just six years old.
Dr. Conkbayir asked, 'Of course you're gonna be impacted by your mom's passing forever. You know, we just move with the grief and it becomes part of us one way. But yeah. Do you feel like, so you don't have your own children do you or family...?'
Suzy replied, 'No, I would, I would like to have them but umm...' When asked if the loss was exacerbated by not having immediate family, Suzy said, 'No, I don't think that is it. I think I've dealt with the grief. I stopped crying at 11. As a survival thing in boarding school. And then I realized at 19 that I was dead inside. So I ripped that back open. I ripped off the scar tissue that built. Yeah, because I thought a cat run over in the street and I thought, I don't feel anything. I thought, oh, I am dead inside. And I think that's what boarding schools do for kids. They make them dead inside.'
Previous Remarks on Children and Relationships
Suzy has previously spoken about being open to having children and falling in love again with a woman. She told Gyles Brandreth on the Rosebud podcast, 'I would be very happy to have children. But at the moment it's not there. Never say never.' She added, 'I am trans, but I fancy women, I've always fancied women, never fancied boys or men, it just doesn't work for me.'
Discussing her love life, she admitted she is not actively looking for love because she is 'happy' in her own company. She said, 'I'm not going to go into lots of relationships. It is tricky - having relationships if you're a trans person that's going to be tricky, but I'm quite happy with my own company. I'm very happy in the position that I am at the moment so I'm not looking. If someone comes along and we click very well - then absolutely.' She also described her ideal partner as 'an intelligent person, great conversation, good sense of humour, attractive.'
Suzy previously told The Daily Mail's Richard Eden, 'I would like to start dating, but it's complicated with me being a trans woman. It's going to have to be a very confident and strong-minded woman who has a relationship with me.'
Her last known relationship was with singer Sarah Townsend, whom she met at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1989. Sarah directed the 2009 documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story. The pair reportedly remained good friends after separating in 2002. Suzy has also dated Susie Church, who tragically passed away in 2016.
