Russell Crowe endorses Eddie Izzard amid bid to become Labour MP: ‘An amazing opportunity’

Russell Crowe has shared his support for Eddie Izzard as she begins her campaign to become a Labour MP.

The comedian announced her entry into the running to be a member of parliament for Sheffield Central on Tuesday (11 October), with a post made on her campaign website.

Explaining her motivations, Izzard wrote that she wanted to “support the city that has supported me” as well as “take the fight to the Tories and get Keir Starmer into No 10”.

“When I’m faced with a challenge, I work my hardest to deliver,” she told supporters.

As well as this, Izzard posted a video to social media, laying out her campaign points.

Later on Tuesday, Crowe reposted Izzard’s video on Twitter with a positive endorsement of her political efforts.

“Fantastic,” the Gladiator star began his message. “Go on Eddie. No brighter mind, no bigger heart. What an amazing opportunity for Sheffield.

If elected, Izzard would replace Labour MP Paul Blomfield, who announced that he was standing down at the next general election in February.

Earlier this year, Izzard, who has been openly transgender since 1985, spoke out about deciding to inform the public of her use of she/her pronouns while filming Sky Arts’s Portrait Artist of the Year in 2020.

“Some young artists painting me, they ask me, like a coffee thing, they said, ‘She/her or he/him?’” she recalled.

“I was wearing a dress and I’m based as a trans woman now, so, ‘She/her, I’ll have a latte.’ It was that kind of lack of stress.”

Izzard said that, following the episode’s broadcast, “in two days in America and Britain, where I’m best known, all my pronouns were changed”, which she called “fantastic, a great honour”.

However, she also clarified that she was “relaxed” about the usage of pronouns. On the podcast My Seven Wonders with Clive Anderson in August, she said: “I prefer she/her, don’t mind he/him, and I’m going to be relaxed about it. It’s not the time for fighting each other on this.”