Eddie Izzard chooses Suzy as ‘another name’ to add on

The stand-up comedian, who previously said her identity is gender fluid, said her full name is going to be Suzy Eddie Izzard – with Suzy being a name she has wanted to use since childhood.

She was asked about people being worried about making pronoun mistakes on The Political Party With Matt Forde on Monday.

Izzard responded saying she makes “mistakes” with her pronouns and when people do use she/her it has felt like “hits of positivity” and was “amazing”.

She said she previously released a statement, and said: “I prefer to see she/her, I don’t mind he/him… I’m Eddie.”

Izzard added: “There’s another name I’m going to add in as well, which is Suzy, which I wanted to be since I was 10. I’m going to be Suzy Eddie Izzard.

“That’s how I’m (going to) roll so people can choose what they want. They can’t make a mistake. They can’t go wrong with me.”

She said she is keeping the name as Eddie Izzard in stand-up shows and is unsure if this will continue as she continues her fight to “get in” as a Labour parliamentary candidate in the future.

Following the release of the podcast, Izzard clarified the addition in a statement, saying: “I have decided to add the name ‘Suzy’ to my names.

“So going forward I am preferring Suzy but I don’t mind Eddie. And I prefer she/her but I don’t mind he/him.

“So no-one can really get it wrong unless they call me Kenneth or Sabrina. I am remaining Eddie Izzard in public. Thanks, Suzy/Eddie.”

Previously, Izzard tried to become a candidate for Sheffield Central, having previously studied at the University of Sheffield, but lost out to local councillor Abtisam Mohamed.

She also said if she became a constituency MP it would be her main job, and she would use her comedy skills for charity.

Izzard also said that she needs to “drill down” into the facts before committing to particular policies and plans, and wants everyone to have a “fair chance in life”.

She added: “I want to get people to try and work together to take humanity forward, all of us, the whole world, (billions of) people – what a ridiculous idea, but I’m going to fight for it.”

Citing her experience running concurrent marathons, Izzard added: “I have a certain amount of energy… If the Labour Party wants it, if people in Britain want it, I can fight, I can fight hard, and I can come up with better (and) different ways of doing things.”

In 2009, Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief, and then 27 marathons in 27 days in South Africa in honour of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in 2017.

Elsewhere, Izzard also talked about how she would like to go back to performing in Russia once again.

She said: “I think this is (President of Russia Vladimir) Putin’s war (in Ukraine) and the people of Russia have been dragged into it.

“I know people in Russia, I’ve played in Russia. I know the kids in Russia, they want a positive future.”

When asked whether it was transphobic to disagree with reforms to laws around gender recognition after the Scottish Parliament was blocked by the UK Government on enacting new legislation, Izzard also said: “Transphobic is saying that trans people don’t exist and saying horrible things about trans people.

“That’s in the dictionary that I’ve just created.”

She added: “Everyone’s allowed to have a point of view in the discussion, but what the timing should be between the feeling that you want to transition and (when) you’re allowed to transition? That is a tricky question. I don’t have the perfect answer.”

In 2020, Izzard announced during an appearance on the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist Of The Year that she is gender-fluid and wanted “to be based in girl mode from now on”.

The Political Party With Matt Forde live at the Duchess Theatre in London continues with Channel 4 news journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy on March 20 and former leader of the Scottish Conservative Party Ruth Davidson on April 3.

Tickets are available at mattforde.com.