Luke Evans: Growing up gay as Jehovah’s Witness in Welsh valleys

He left Aberbargoed in Caerphilly county at 16, and moved to Cardiff, where he started singing lessons.

He worked as a mail boy in a bank before getting the opportunity to study at theatre college in London.

He was 19 when he came out to his parents, who are practising Jehovah’s Witnesses to this day.

“We’ve been through a lot together. What we’ve done is we’ve come through two very different journeys in life where love has risen above everything.

“Respect, love and understanding, and that’s what we have had to have with each other, because we’ve all chosen different paths, but it doesn’t mean we can’t love each other and be in each other’s lives.

“I respect them. They respect me.”

He said he was very grateful they had managed to navigate it.

“It’s not easy, and I know a lot of ex-Witnesses don’t have any relationship with their parents or their families. They’ve cut them off completely.”

He added that he had lost many friends from the age of 16 and younger.

“I have none. I just have one school friend who wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness.