Benedict Cumberbatch blasts 'obsessive and deluded' Cumberbitches

Benedict Cumberbatch has branded some of his fans “obsessive and deluded” stalkers who want him to be their “internet boyfriend.”

The Sherlock star attracted an army of female followers when he was cast as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous sleuth in the eponymous BBC televsion drama but finds it unbelievable that some admirers – who call themselves Cumberbitches – are convinced his marriage to Sophie Turner and 16-month-old son Christopher are fake “PR stunts”.

He told Vanity Fair: “There are people who believe that my wife is a P.R. stunt and my child is a P.R. stunt.

“I think really it’s to do with the idea that the ‘Internet’s boyfriend’ can’t actually belong to anyone else but the Internet. It’s impossible he belongs to anyone but me. And that’s what stalking is. That’s what obsessive, deluded, really scary behaviour is.”

The 40-year-old star admitted he can laugh at the more complimentary remarks made about him, like one from a woman who said: “Sometimes when I’m sad I picture a shirtless Benedict Cumberbatch slowly eating an apple fritter. Try it!”

He mused: “Have you tried that? It wouldn’t work for me. I’m glad I’m bringing a ray of sunshine to an otherwise dull day, being imagined eating fritters shirtless. But, I don’t know, it makes me giggle. I don’t look at myself in the mirror and go, ‘Yeah, absolutely! I see what they’re saying!’ I see all my faults and everything that I’ve always seen as my faults.”