Miriam Margolyes reveals why she doesn’t live with her partner

While Miriam Margolyes has previously opened up about her loving relationship with her long-term partner, Heather Sutherland, the star also admitted that the pair actually made the decision not to live together – until now! 

Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Miriam revealed that after 54 years together, the pair are actually moving in with one another, explaining: “We are together, but we live apart. She is in Amsterdam, and I am in London but now we want to live together. I really do want to live with her because we are old, and we haven’t got much time left. It is silly to live apart.” 

Previously chatting to The Guardian about their decision to live separately, she explained: “We did for a short time. But mostly we haven’t because she works in Holland. It’s worked for us, because we’re both involved in what we do and have no children. I never wanted kids. They’re a nuisance.”

Of course, living separately from one another meant that the pair were parted for a long time during the lockdown earlier this year, but Miriam joked that Heather might have preferred it that way. Chatting on This Morning, she said she would have “loved” to have been with her partner, but added: “Actually I don’t know whether she would because she’s an introvert so she likes to be quiet and get on with work. She’s writing a book about Indonesia.” 

Heather is an Australian citizen, and became an Australian citizen herself back in 2013, and the pair have a house in New South Wales. Miriam recently came under fire for allegedly labelling Australians “brutal and greedy”, a statement that she clarified to Radio Times, saying: “I’m a cantankerous old bird. 

© Isabel Infantes – PA Images

“Just because I love Australia doesn’t mean I don’t want it to be better.” She also told Today Extra: “I was quoted [by the media] as saying, ‘I think Australia is greedy and brutal.’ Well, that’s just not what I said. I said, ‘I think some Australians are greedy and brutal’ and particularly I think the architecture is awful in places like Surfers Paradise.”

The star also apologised for the comments she recently made on the Today programme, when she voiced her very strong of Jeremy Hunt. She said: “I would never swear on Radio 4 because to me it is a temple. I truly didn’t know what I had done. I was shocked and appalled at my own rudeness. It was upsetting.”