Nicola Sturgeon: The truth about my sexuality, those wild claims of a ‘lesbian affair’ and the ‘guilt’ I felt at my miscarriage

Nicola Sturgeon has revealed that she does not consider her sexuality to be ‘binary’ in explosive first extracts from her memoirs.

The former First Minister addressed rumours about her sexuality and relationships for the first time in her autobiography Frankly, which will be released next week.

But she refused to give specific details, saying that ‘sexual relationships should be private’.

She also said the police probe into the SNP’s finances caused her ‘mental torture’ and her arrest was the worst day of her life.

The former First Minister described her ‘despair’ when police raided her home and said she felt like she had ‘fallen into the plot of a dystopian novel’.

While she said the arrest of her husband Peter Murrell made it feel ‘like a nightmare with no end’, she also admitted it gave her a ‘brief glimmer of hope’ that she could be cleared.

She also wrote of how she felt ‘overwhelmed by guilt’ when she fell pregnant ahead of an election campaign, and then felt she was ‘being punished for not wanting the baby badly enough’ when she suffered a miscarriage.

Addressing questions about her sexuality for the first time, Ms Sturgeon, who announced earlier this year that she and Mr Murrell had decided to end their marriage, said: ‘Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than thirty years of my life, but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary.

Nicola Sturgeon has opened up about her sexuality, revealing that she has never considered her sexuality to be binary (Pictured with her husband Peter Murrell)

Ms Sturgeon also said she was furious upon hearing rumours she was having a lesbian affair with the French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna (pictured together February, 2020)

Ms Sturgeon with her then-husband after being voted in as First Minister of Scotland at the Scottish Parliament on November 19, 2014 in Edinburgh

‘Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.’

Ms Sturgeon was in a relationship with Mr Murrell from 2003 to 2025, having met in 1988 at a SNP youth event and marrying in 2010 at Òran Mór in Glasgow.

In January of this year the former politician announced on social media that she and the former Chief Executive Officer of the SNP had split.  

The first extracts of her memoirs were published by The Times last night ahead of being released next Thursday.

She wrote of how social media was ‘awash’ with rumours that she was having a secret relationship with a woman in the early weeks of 2020.

Although different versions of the rumour existed, she said they consistently suggested that she ‘was having a torrid lesbian affair’ with Catherine Colonna, who was the French ambassador to the UK at the time and would later become French Foreign Minister.

She said that one version of the story suggested there had been a ‘violent encounter’ between them involving an iron in Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel, while there were also suggestions that they had a ‘love nest’ in a house in Bridge of Allan bought from Andy Murray’s mum, Judy.

She said that the rumours were openly talked about and her family were asked about them, while a neighbour also ‘obliquely’ mentioned it to Mr Murrell ‘presumably thinking he had a right to know that his wife was having an affair’.

Ms Sturgeon, 55, and Mr Murrell, 60, divorced earlier this year (pictured together in 2010 on their wedding day)

Ms Sturgeon was in a relationship with Mr Murrell from 2003 to 2025, having met in 1988 at a SNP youth event and marrying in 2010 at Òran Mór in Glasgow (pictured together December 12, 2019)

Ms Sturgeon also said she was ‘furious’ when the Guido Fawkes social media site said that a salacious story about her private life was only still secret because she had a superinjunction in place to stop it being report, which she said was ‘a blatant lie’ because there was no such thing and ‘such a legal remedy’ isn’t even available in Scots law.

When rumours emerged again, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘I had little option but to shrug it off, however irritating it might have been.

‘Catherine, the French ambassador, helped. She was aware of the rumours too and, the first time I saw her after lockdown, at a meeting of EU ambassadors in the Scottish government’s London office, we laughed about it.

‘We were photographed together a couple of times after that, at Cop27 in Egypt, for example, and the online frenzy which ensued suggested that we had successfully trolled the trolls.

‘Although the French ambassador and I could laugh about it, a saga like this does throw up serious issues. How do fake stories like this take root in social media? Did some Russian bot factory concoct a made-up story? Who knows? Then, of course, there is the blatant homophobia at the heart of the ‘story’.

‘For many of those peddling it, ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are meant as insults. However, while the fact I was being lied about got under my skin, the nature of the insult itself was water off a duck’s back.’

Ms Sturgeon’s register of interests says she received a £75,000 payment in August 2023 which was the first of four instalments from publisher Pan Macmillan for the memoirs.

The Glasgow Southside MSP also said she has been spending 10-15 hours per week writing the book.

Ms Sturgeon described her fury that social media was ‘awash’ with rumours that she was having a secret relationship with a woman in the early weeks of 2020 (pictured August 2020)

The former SNP leader said she was ‘desolate and
Source: Dailymail.co.uk | Continue to Full Story…