I am not over-familiar with the name Paul Burrell. According to the Sun, Burrell served the people’s princess Diana as her butler for over 10 years and became her “rock”. My lowly status in society does not entitle me to the services of a butler so I know little about his job description. I am assuming Burrell was a character rather like Parker to Lady Di’s Penelope. Anyway,the Sun’s tasteful splash headline is “I’m gay and I’m marrying my lover”. The Mirror manages to sink to the occasion with something very similar. Suddenly we are back in the 1960s.
I guarantee that hardly anyone from the current younger generation will give a monkey’s about Paul Burrell is going to do in his private life. I can further guarantee that the vast majority of young people will never have heard of Burrell and will need to call upon Mr Google what a butler does, if they can be bothered. They will , unlike the vast majority of tabloid consumers who are undoubtedly not young, have zero interest in Burrell’s sexuality.
That Burrell was Diana’s butler makes him a celebrity in the eyes of many. The tabloids would not run the story so prominently if there was not an audience for this sort of thing. The fact that Burrell has now come out as gay is no one’s business but his own, unless he has sold his story (perish the thought) and anyone who does that has little or no shame, doing nothing other than to feed the tabloid monster which still regards gay people as “different”.
It is the language of these so-called revelations that bugs me. Burrell’s “new love” and constant references to his “lover”. Perhaps it is my imagination, but this is not the language used in respect of “straight” people. Worst of all, Burrell “rumoured to be gay”. This concerns me greatly. When I was 18 or 19 and struggling to attract a girlfriend, was I “rumoured to be straight”? “Look at him, I’ve heard he fancies girls. Bloody pervert.” Of course not. It’s a one-way street in the eyes of the tabloid media and many of its readers. Again, as I say, why would they buy the papers if they were not interested in salacious tittle-tattle?
The butler of a woman who died 20 years ago, a celebrity. What have we come to? I am stunned that anyone would be interested in this man’s private life. This is 2017 for goodness sake.
