Julie Burchill (1959 – )

Born in Frenchay, Bristol, Julie Burchill began work for the music magazine NME. Especially controversial as a journalist during the 1980s, she wrote pro-Thatcher articles for the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. During the 1990s her profile centred on the London club scene, her association with the Groucho club and excursions into magazine publishing. She was effectively sacked by The Times in 2007, later describing her own column as ‘arrant crap’. Burchill wrote the bestselling novel Ambition (1989) and Sugar Rush, a lesbian-themed novel (2004) which was serialised for TV.

Julie’s personal life has been equally controversial. After three marriages and two children, she hit the headlines for her ‘six months of lesbianism’ affair with Charlotte Raven in 1995, and has had other relationships with women. Burchill dislikes labels, saying she prefers the description ‘spontaneous’. In a revealing article for the Guardian (May 13, 2009) she talked of her attraction to women in their 20s, stating that as she was then nearly 50, “I really don’t want to be an old perv. So best leave it.”

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Wikipedia: Julie Burchill

Andrew Foyle
Last edited: 6/11/2011