Buzz
Gay father planning to have twins with daughter's boyfriend
One of Britain’s first gay fathers – who recently split from his husband – has revealed he is planning to have twin girls with his younger lover.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 50, and his husband Tony, 55, became the first same-sex couple to be formally registered as parents in 1999.
But the couple separated last month after Barrie fell ‘head over heels’ for his assistant Scott Hutchison, 25, who once dated his 19-year-old daughter Saffron.
The Daily Mail reveals that father-of-five Barrie and his new partner are taking their whirlwind romance one step further – by having twin daughters.
Remarkably, all three men still live under the same roof in ‘a very 21st-century family set-up’ and Tony has even agreed to be the children’s godfather.
Last night, Barrie said: ‘I don’t want there to be any secrets and I want to get any negativity out of the way before our babies arrive.’
He added: ‘Yes, it is unorthodox, but we are a loving family and our priority is to have a stable home for our kids and what is now an extended family.
‘It works for us – and if people are shocked, well that’s their problem, not ours.’
It is almost 20 years to the day that Barrie and Tony went through the same process when a surrogate gave birth to twins Aspen and Saffron.
The fathers, from Essex, who are worth £40million and live in a £6million ten-bedroom mansion in Florida, went on to have three more children.
The millionaires, who made their fortune through ventures including a surrogacy agency and medical research firm, became civil partners in 2006 and married in 2014.
But Barrie has previously told how they ‘slid into a platonic relationship’ after Tony was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.
He said Mr Hutchison, his PA of seven years, became a ‘shoulder to cry on’ when Tony, who is now in remission, was in hospital during treatment last year. Last week, he announced that Tony remained his ‘true love’ but that they would be ending their 32-year relationship.
Barrie and Scott are planning to fertilise an egg each to be carried by a surrogate, meaning that, if both embryos survive, they would have twins. Their surrogate will be inseminated in the next three weeks.
Barrie said the couple would also be using sex selection ‘in the hope that we could try for daughters – princesses to spoil’.
He said: ‘I hadn’t contemplated having any more children, especially at my age.
‘But Scott has always wanted to have a child of his own so I said if he wanted us to be parents together, I would support him in that and have a baby with him.’
Barrie said that Tony, who suffered life-threatening complications during radiotherapy to combat cancer, had given the couple his full blessing and helped them choose potential egg donors.
He said: ‘I wanted to make sure that Tony was going to be ok with it, especially as he is seriously ill and in need of constant care and attention himself.
Barrie added: ‘I can’t believe that 20 years ago I was doing the exact same thing with Tony and I’m here again full circle. I’m excited but nervous now. Tony has promised he would be godfather.’
He said: ‘I want to do this with Scott because I know he really wants to be a dad and I want to parent with him and share the experience with him.’
Mr Hutchison, who is bi-sexual, has previously said he and Barrie’s daughter Saffron never had a sexual relationship.
He said: ‘Saffron is one of the best friends I could have asked for. She and I are so close. She understands everything.’
Related
