Coach Trip star Brendan Sheerin wants to change LGBT attitudes in Middle East
The tour guide revealed the Channel 4 series is popular in Qatar and Saudi Arabia
By Steve Brown
Coach Trip star Brendan Sheerin wants to change the attitudes towards LGBT people in the Middle East.
The tour guide – who is the face of website CoachFinder – has never shied away about his sexuality and was in a 25-year relationship with his life partner Leslie before he died of heart failure in 2001.
But Sheerin became a household name on the hit Channel 4 show and admitted the popularity of the competition has spread across the world into countries including Qatar and in Saudi Arabia where it’s still illegal to be gay.
He told The Sun Online: “Coach Trip is big in Qatar and places like Saudi Arabia.
“These gentlemen come up to me with tea cloths on their heads… I think, ‘What’s happening here?’
“And it’s all, ‘Ooh we love it, we love it’.”
But despite the criminalisation of homosexuality in the Middle East, Sheerin is hoping that he can change their attitudes towards gay people.
“I hope I can change their attitudes to gay people,” he added.
“There should never be any laws about the way they are. We want more freedom.”