Lord Ivar Mountbatten: All About King Charles' TV Star Cousin
King Charles III's cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, is one of the more unusual members of the royal family. He's not particularly close to the main line of succession, which has afforded him a degree of freedom that other royals do not have. He's been a business owner, has dabbled in becoming a reality television star, and in 2016, he made British history when he became the first member of the royal family to come out as gay.
"Having the world's press shine a huge spotlight on me overnight proclaiming me 'The First Gay Royal' was ... pretty alarming," he wrote in an essay for the Independent. "The reaction of my friends and family concerned me a lot, and I wondered if my world would suddenly collapse around me."
Thankfully, Lord Ivar's world hasn't collapsed around him. Instead, he's found a way through the ups and downs of the spotlight, forging his own path through a part of upper-crust British society that wasn't always supportive of people who broke the mold.
Lord Ivar Mountbatten is in the line of succession
Lord Ivar Mountbatten was born into the British royal family in 1963, entering a long lineage that, technically, puts him in line for the throne. He is the son of David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven. Because the royal family is a bit intermarried, Ivar is related to both Prince Phillip and Queen Elizabeth II; he's the first cousin, once removed from the former, and third cousins, once removed from the latter.
Being part of the royal family meant certain obligations when Ivar was younger. In this case, along with his brother George, Ivar was bequeathed an estate at Moyns Park, but soon found it was too expensive to care for the impressive building. Eventually, George sold Ivar his share of the home. "It was like putting three or four grand a week into a bucket and dropping it down a well, and all because of the aristocracy's obsession with keeping their estates going for the next generation," George said, according to Lord Ivar's website. "I kept it up for seven years. It virtually ruined me." Ivar sold the home in 1997, no longer willing to be responsible for keeping the estate running.
Lord Ivar's first marriage was to Penny Mountbatten
As Lord Ivar Mountbatten grew up, he began to take part in the London social scene. That's where he ran into a woman named Penelope Thompson, who would soon become known as Penny Mountbatten. "Ivar and I met at a dinner party in London," Penny explained to Attitude. "I was very attracted to him straight away." To hear Ivar tell it, however, their relationship grew over time. "You sort of gradually fall in love with somebody that's actually a very good friend," he hedged. "She has a great sense of humor. We got on very well together ... It was a great match."
The two married in a lavish wedding near where Ivar was raised, in Suffolk. "It was a hugely grand affair," Penny recalled. "I was completely overwhelmed. There were a few members of the royal family there, and I really didn't enjoy wearing a tiara." It's true; Prince Edward and Princess Margaret attended the ceremony.
Lord Ivar, on the other hand, looks back on that day fondly. "I really loved my wedding day," he glowed. "I thought it was great fun, but then, you know, the whole point of having a wedding is to have fun ... I think it might have been a little bit stressful for her." Penny agreed, confirming, "I was glad when it was over."
Before they married, Lord Ivar came out to Penny Mountbatten
The wedding of Lord Ivar and Penny Mountbatten came as a surprise to none other than Ivar himself. After all, he'd grown up knowing he was attracted to men, and wasn't sure he would be able to settle down in the way that had been expected of him as a member of the royal family. He had, however, found someone who accepted his true self. Speaking with Attitude, Ivar and Penny detailed their differing reactions when he came out.
"I told Penny before we got married that I like boys as much as I like girls," Lord Ivar insisted. But now, he admits he wasn't telling the whole truth and preferred men to women.
At the time, though, he told his wife that he was bisexual. "We went for a walk, and he told me that he thought he'd never get married, because he was attracted to men as well as women," Penny recalled. She wasn't upset by his admission. "I immediately not only found that to be quite a good challenge," she said, "but also that was something that I accepted, and wasn't really worried about at all."
Lord Ivar began having affairs while married
At first, Lord Ivar Mountbatten assumed his marriage to Penny Mountbatten was the end of his struggle with his sexuality. "I'm of that generation that you just buried it and you didn't act upon it, and, you know, got on with life," he told Attitude.
Before long, however, Penny realized that she hadn't exactly won the "challenge" that she viewed his sexuality as. Instead, it seemed that Ivar was, indeed, acting on his desires, and he was doing so without his wife's permission. "I think initially Ivar kept his relationships secret," Penny recalled, noting that those attempts at secrecy were unsuccessful. "It was quite obvious to me that he was having affairs with other people."
Unlike after his coming-out, this time Penny didn't like what her husband was doing. "I was extremely jealous, and just had to kind of swallow it, and deal with it," she confessed.
Penny Mountbatten decided to end their marriage
At a certain point, Lord Ivar Mountbatten was no longer able to hide his sexuality from the rest of his family. He and Penny Mountbatten had three daughters together, and Penny soon began to worry about the effects of Ivar's secret on their daughters. "As the girls were growing up, and I believe our eldest daughter was 12, I noticed they were beginning to pick up on certain things that were happening," Penny recalled to Attitude. She told Ivar that he should tell his daughters about being gay, which he decided to do.
"When I mentioned it to Ella [Ivar's eldest daugter] she was very cool about it. All her friends go on weekends where they snog each other, boy or girl, then go back and tell each other," Lord Ivar ruminated to Tatler. "I think that generation are just totally unfazed by it all." His daughter Alix, on the other hand, learned about her father's sexuality when she read her older sister's diary. "When I read that I was really hurt. I was so shocked. I couldn't believe how I hadn't picked up on it," Alix said (via the Daily Mail).
Penny didn't like that her husband had to hide being gay. She told Attitude, "I realized in the last few years of our marriage that he really would be so much happier if he was being authentic." She made a big decision, declaring, "I had to end our marriage."
Lord Ivar Mountbatten struck up a relationship with James Coyle
Initially, after Lord Ivar and Penny Mountbatten divorced, he went looking for another wife. After all, being publicly gay was a big deal, especially for a member of the royal family. "I still wasn't comfortable with it at that point. I went on a few dates, and that's when I thought, 'Do I really want to go down that route again, of having girlfriends?'" he later told Tatler. Thankfully, that was around the time he met James Coyle, the man who would become his husband.
Speaking with Attitude, Coyle revealed that he and Ivar met when they passed each other at a bar. "We then just had this exchange of, you know, chat, a definite vibe about what was what." According to Coyle, they were smitten with each other from just that one meeting, before Coyle even realized he was talking to a royal. "I didn't know anything about him. I didn't know anything about the family, the history, anything at all," he said. "I just knew he was a nice guy."
Before he could really commit, Lord Ivar wanted the approval of his family, including his ex-wife. "He and I really got on very well," Penny said of Coyle to Attitude. "It was such a relief, because I knew that my girls would like him too."
James Coyle was touched when Lord Ivar came out publicly
The news broke that Lord Ivar Mountbatten was in a same-sex relationship in 2016, when the Daily Mail published an interview with him. In the article, Ivar revealed that, although he was choosing to go public, he still wasn't comfortable with who he was, even after all this time. "'Coming out' is such a funny phrase but it's what I suppose I did in a rather roundabout way, emerging to a place I'm happy to be," he said. "I have struggled with my sexuality and in some ways I still do; it has been a real journey to reach this point."
Furthermore, Ivar insisted that it wasn't the fact that he was a royal that played into his decision to stay in the closet for so long. "Being a Mountbatten was never the problem, it was the generation into which I was born," he said. "When I was growing up, it was known as 'the love that dare not speak its name.'"
His new beau James Coyle was very touched that Ivar weathered the media storm on his behalf, choosing to, indeed, speak his name. Looking back at that hectic time for Attitude, Coyle recalled, "My phone just started going crazy ... That kind of attention and doing that was another show of his feelings for me and what he wanted to do, and what he wanted to tell the world about not just about himself, but about us."
Lord Ivar is the first British royal to marry someone of the same sex
Coming out publicly wasn't enough for Lord Ivar Mountbatten, who wanted to show his support for James Coyle in a different way. "We decided we wanted to get married," Coyle told Attitude. "So he wanted to give me some sort of security in that I'm now his husband."
Two years after announcing their relationship to the Daily Mail, Coyle and Lord Ivar were married. In a show of support, Ivar was walked down the aisle by his ex-wife, Penny Mountbatten. He announced the wedding on Instagram, shouting out everyone who helped make it such a special day. "Most importantly a massive thanks to my 3 gorgeous girls for being so understanding and supportive, without their support this could never have happened!" he wrote. "And finally the biggest thank you to James for being just perfect."
Unlike the mixed reaction to Lord Ivar's first wedding, everyone seems to agree that this second one was much better, as they revealed when Coyle and Penny spoke about the nuptials with Attitude. "It was just so joyful. There wasn't much formality," Penny recalled, grinning that she chose an attractive bagpiper to play music for the happy grooms. Coyle was particularly touched by Penny's presence on the day, noting, "Penny gave Ivar away, which I think, again, sort of, was a commitment to the solidarity of our family."
James Coyle, Penny Mountbatten, and Lord Ivar Mountbatten are a modern family
Now that no one is keeping secrets, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Penny Mountbatten, and James Coyle have formed an unconventional family unit. "We have a very modern family, where I've got three fantastic stepdaughters," Coyle told Attitude. "And then [it's important] to have the support of Penny; she's been the backbone through all of it." Penny agreed, confirming, "We're all devoted to our children. So we spend Christmas together, and sometimes have family holidays."
The fact that all three of Ivar and Penny's daughters support the relationship is crucial to its success. They've all become very close, sometimes even traveling with Coyle alone, thanks to his job with an airline. "I think they like having another man in the house," Coyle guessed while speaking with Tatler. Ivar confirmed that he depended on his family's approval before committing to the relationship. "It's one thing that could have gone really badly wrong for the relationship," he said. "If even one of the daughters had been unhappy about it I don't think it would have worked."
Two senior royals, in particular, were supportive of Lord Ivar and James Coyle's relationship
Princess Margaret and Prince Edward attended Lord Ivar and Penny Mountbatten's wedding in 1994, but no royals showed up when he married James Coyle. The fact that he's open with his sexuality certainly makes the royal family seem more progressive than they used to be, but it's easy to wonder whether the rest of the family are supportive of his decision to be out and proud. "They don't really talk about it," Ivar told Tatler. "I mean, the royals, they don't communicate very well."
While that may be true of the royal family at large — Prince William and Prince Harry could certainly communicate better — Ivar does seem to have the support of two senior royals. When he came out, Ivar revealed that Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, did support him. While they couldn't attend the wedding, Ivar said of the couple, "They adore James. Everyone adores him" (via the Daily Mail).
Lord Ivar also gave a clue as to the royal family's thoughts when he wrote an essay for the Independent about his coming-out experience, declaring that he'd been met with no pushback from loved ones. "Absolutely everyone was incredibly supportive, and it soon became clear that in the scheme of things, your sexuality is of no significance to others," he wrote. "Once I had made that very public leap out of the closet, I wondered what all the fuss was about."
Lord Ivar and his husband operate their home as a wedding venue
After the hubbub over the news of a gay member of the royal family died down, Lord Ivar Mountbatten and his husband James Coyle continued on with their lives as newlyweds. The couple operate their home, Bridwell Park, as a popular wedding venue and café. According to Bridwell's website, they exclusively traffic in small ceremonies, only booking weddings with 15 or fewer guests. "You could call us an Elopement Wedding Venue," the website reads. "But we believe we can do so much better than that when it comes to the celebration of love and marriage."
Lord Ivar and Coyle invited cameras into their home for a 2022 episode of the show "Keeping Up With The Aristocrats," detailing the struggles of running a luxury business like that in the wake of the pandemic. According to the Daily Mail, the episode revolved around the couple opening a pop-up restaurant on the house's grounds, trying to find new ways to bring in the £100,000 per year cost of operating the estate. The episode depicted Lord Ivar as a hands-on business owner, someone unafraid to involve himself in the business' day-to-day operations. "These places don't run themselves and I'm the sort of person that I'd rather do something myself than pay for them to do it," Ivar said.
Lord Ivar Mountbatten has emerged in the reality television industry
In June 2024, Peacock announced the cast of the upcoming third season of the U.S. version of "The Traitors." The show sees celebrities compete in a murder-mystery game involving backstabbing, treachery, and disloyalty, making it the perfect playground for some reality vets like former Bachelor Peter Weber ... and one particular British royal. Lord Ivar Mountbatten will compete on the third season, but it won't be his first time on a reality competition show.
Back in 2019, he appeared on Channel 4's "Treasure Island," a show hosted by Bear Grylls that saw a bunch of Brits get dropped on an island with little to survive. "I think maybe it was a sort of an on-going mid-life crises!" Ivar joked in an interview with Channel 4. He said he was a fan of the show, especially its survival element. "I'm an outdoorsy person and that whole idea was just right up my street and of course none of us are getting younger, are we?" he cracked. "No, I'm not!"
It is, of course, unusual for a member of the royal family to become a reality star. Speaking with Tatler about his "Treasure Island" appearance, Lord Ivar's husband James Coyle brushed aside concerns about his fame. "There's no point worrying about anything like that. I just take every day as it comes," Coyle said. "One thing I will say about Ivar is that you're always outside your comfort zone."