Who was David Oldham? Reverend Richard Coles’ late husband who was also a priest

Reverend Richard Coles broke down about his late husband on I’m A Celeb this week, and though he passed away back in 2019, he’s never shied away from talking about his monumental loss.

Reverend Richard Coles has been a surprising viewer favourite in 2024’s I’m A Celeb, having already been featured in a viral sex talk with campmate GK Barry. During Tuesday’s episode, the good Reverend broke down about the loss of his husband following his hard fight against alcoholism.

“I miss him… He’s just left a massive hole in my life and I’m living my life around that loss,” he told Oti Mabuse.

Reverend Richard Coles met his husband in 2007

After moving on from his flourishing music career to join the Church of England, Reverend Richard Coles met his future husband, David Oldham, in 2007 when David was working as an A&E nurse in Manchester. David reportedly had an interest in joining the church, so the two discussed the matter for hours. After their initial meeting, David shared his attraction via a text message and they were soon a couple.

Five years before same-sex marriage was made legal in the UK, the happy couple entered into a civil partnership in 2010, at which point both were priests of the Church of England.

#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/niXDpw8d3f

— Rev David Coles (@RevDavidColes) October 11, 2019

At that time, Reverend Richard Coles maintained that they were both completely celibate and not sharing a bed, something which he admitted to lying about in an interview with The Times earlier this year. Naughty yes, but definitely iconic.

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“I felt sometimes like I was in the resistance and they were the Gestapo. I mean, I’m overstating it, but what I did feel is that they had no moral cause, so I didn’t feel that I had a moral obligation at all,” he said. “And I’m not the first person to find themselves obliged to lie for institutional reasons in the Church of England.”

David Oldham passed away in 2019

David, a self-declared “dilettante potter, designer, gardener and narrow boat enthusiast”, sadly passed away in 2019 after a battle with alcoholism.

I’m very sorry to say that @RevDavidColes has died. He had been ill for a while. Thanks to the brilliant teams who looked after him at @KettGeneral. Funeral details to follow. “The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended”. pic.twitter.com/usvLDIBDv7

— Richard Coles (@RevRichardColes) December 17, 2019

“I’m very sorry to say that @RevDavidColes has died. He had been ill for a while. Thanks to the brilliant teams who looked after him at @KettGeneral. Funeral details to follow. The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended,” Reverend Richard Coles wrote on Twitter at the time.

The cause of David’s death was not something that the Reverend shared initially, though he did touch on the subject in his 2021 memoir The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss.

“It was really, really tough to see somebody you love destroy himself. It is like someone is drowning and you throw them a lifebelt but they are just not taking the lifebelt. And I did try everything I could think of to help him stop drinking, and in fairness to him he did try too, but it was too much for him,” he wrote.

He noted that his spouse would have “hated the book”, but he felt like it could do some good for other people suffering from the disease.

The Reverend explained in another portion: “There is this feeling of liberation. Partly because life with David was sometimes really tough, and you don’t have to do the tough stuff anymore. Partly because there are those smaller unexpected pleasures, like eating Indian takeaways, which he hated, or being able to watch football to my heart’s content.

“But none of these pleasures are on the same level as the loss, which is immense. Which comes at you from behind you and below you and rises up and swallows you. You know, I got completely overwhelmed at the supermarket the other day – all because I saw a jar of pickled herrings. I would never go near a pickled herring. I couldn’t eat a pickled herring. But David loved them. I just had to take a minute. I felt his loss so grievously, then.”

He left the church a few years later

In 2022, after nearly 20 years in the Church, Reverend Richard Coles stepped back from his duties as he said that he could no longer stand by the institution’s oppression of gay couples.

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