has been awarded a knighthood in the list – and he’s “startled and enchanted” by the news.
Sir Stephen, 67, was recognised by for his services to mental health awareness, the environment and for his charity work. The Blackadder star has been president of mental health charity Mind since 2011, and since 2009 has been Vice President of conservation charity Fauna and Flora International.
He’s also been a keen supporter of the Terence Higgins Trust since 1991, helping to raise funds for people living with HIV and AIDS.
Stephen has been candid about his battle with bipolar disorder over the years, including about a 2012 suicide attempt. The condition causes extreme changes to mood and energy levels far beyond the norm.
He was filming a documentary in 2012 about anti-gay campaigners in and Uganda, which included an investigation into conversion therapy in the US.
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Sir Stephen Fry has been awarded a knighthood (Image: Getty)
The star mixed alcohol and drugs alone in his hotel room and was thankfully found by a producer, who found him “in a sort of unconscious state” and took him home to recover.
Now Sir Stephen has told PA: “What I feel very proud of doing and very pleased to be able to do… because it goes all the way back to my own terrible, worst kind of experiences of what a mental health illness, mental illness can do to one, how it can completely ruin one’s life, one’s happiness, one’s sense of self.
“And how without diagnosis and help and recognition, one can think one is a cursed individual and that there is something deeply wrong with one as a person, which we never think if you’re an asthmatic or a diabetic or have some other chronic illness.
Stephen has been candid about his struggle with bipolar disorder (Image: Getty)
“You don’t think that makes me a bad person, but because our mind is what supposedly controls our speech and our behaviour and our characteristics, it’s all too easy to think that a mental illness is somehow something deeper and more to do with a failure inside.
“It’s an incredibly important field and everybody from the King and his children have made it part of their work to talk about it, and other people in the public eye have been open about it, and so I’m really pleased that it’s in the citation that my presidency of Mind is one of the things that has been recognised.”
If you or someone you know has been affected by this story, Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year.
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