Tommy Fleming has spoken out about the breakdown of his marriage, revealing publicly for the first time that he is gay. 

The acclaimed singer met his wife Tina in 2002 and the pair married in 2006. 

However, the pair separated in September last year and now Mr Fleming said he wants people to learn “my truth”. 

“This year, we would have been 20 years married,” he explained on The Hard Shoulder. 

“We were very happy, but small cracks started to appear - mainly for me - and the small cracks were never mended. 

“Those cracks became a chasm.” 

Mr Fleming continued that he has been “living a lie my whole life” but was now ready to change that. 

“The hardest part of that was the energy and the effort it took for this lie to be constantly covered and to be, I suppose, protected,” he said. 

“And that lie was that I'm gay. 

“I'm finally living my truth, I'm finally being honest, being able to live a life that's true.” 

A different era

Now 55, Mr Fleming said he knew he was not straight as a young man, but explained that Ireland was a very different country back then. 

Homosexuality was a crime until 1993 in Ireland and no country in the world had legalised gay marriage. 

Perhaps most importantly, many people openly disdained gay people. 

“I remember, it was in about 1984, ‘85; it was at the height of the AIDS epidemic and crisis,” he recalled. 

“Every evening on the news, there was something about San Francisco, it was always these just awful stories. 

“My uncle was in the house in my home place with some other neighbour and they were watching the TV with this guy that had a week to live. 

“He was telling his story to which one of them turned around and said, ‘They should be burned alive.’” 

When he met his wife Tina, he was going through a ‘bisexual phase’ - which she was aware of. 

“It was the very, very first thing I said when we met,” Mr Fleming said. 

“That I had been in a relationship with a man that we'd broken up six months, I think, prior. 

“And then we started to go out.” 

However, as the years went on, he came to the conclusion that he was not bisexual - he was a gay man. 

It was a realisation that left him feeling “trapped”. 

“It got harder and it got, it became so difficult in the end that there wasn't a morning I didn't wake up with that awful, awful pain,” he said. 

“It's not a physical pain; somebody said, ‘Is it butterflies?’ 

“No, it's not, it's bats; it’s like a psychic pain, like an emotional pain.” 

Mental health struggles

Eventually, Mr Fleming began to feel overwhelmed with guilt. 

It led to him drinking more than he should have.

Last year, he was admitted to St Patrick’s Hospital after he attempted suicide following an overdose, where he was diagnosed with acute depression and anxiety. 

“I felt like I had absolutely failed in every walk of life, in everything I'd done,” he said. 

“And I wasn't a real man.” 

From St Pat’s, he called his wife and stepdaughter; he accepts this has been hugely difficult for his family and hugely regrets the impact it has had on them. 

“The only thing I can say is, I'm absolutely remorseful and regretful for any of the hurt I've caused to the people I love,” he said. 

“Someday I hope, if there is a God, I would hope and pray that there would be acceptance.”

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