John Barrowman has revealed the heartbreaking reason he married his partner of 26 years, Scott Gill, back in 2013.
Appearing on Loose Women today (Friday, June 26), the former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! runner-up recalled the time the couple were asked to leave the customs queue while travelling back to their home in the US.
"We were in a situation once where we were coming back into the US, and being a family in the UK, we were in the line coming through customs, and they said, 'Who is this?'" John told hosts Judi Love, Christine Lampard, Kaye Adams and Nadia Sawalha, while pointing to Scott.
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"I said, 'This is my partner', because we didn't say husband at that time, and he said, 'We don't recognise that here in this country, get out of the line and get over there'.
"So I said to Scott, 'When this passes, we are going to go, however we are, go to the registry office and get married, and we did – we woke up in the morning, we got out of bed, put on shorts and a t-shirt, drove down to the registry office, and there's a video of us driving there singing."
Barrowman went on to say that it was a "really emotional" day, and not just because he and his loved one had tied the knot.
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"It wasn't just us, there was a lot of other couples all in their late 60s, 70s and 80s, and some came up to me and said, 'Mr Barrowman, we know who you are', after we got married," he remembered.
"And they asked, 'Would you witness our ceremony for us, because most of the families we have have disowned us and and thrown us out, or they're no longer alive and we never thought we would see this day.' So we stood 10-20 weddings and we witnessed all of them."
Loose Women airs weekdays on ITV.
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