Not such a straight trick for Derren Brown

Famed television mentalist and illusionist Derren Brown has knocked back UK media reports that claim he is said to be considering his most controversial trick yet for a new upcoming show – turning a straight man gay and a gay man into someone who is attracted to women.

Reports in the British press yesterday based on an interview for the upcoming April edition of Gay Times magazine had suggested the proudly gay hypnotist was toying with the idea of altering people’s sexuality for a new show.

“I was thinking about this the other day — it would be interesting wouldn’t it? To take a gay guy and make him straight and a straight guy and make him gay,” Brown reportedly told the Gay Times.

Well known for using hypnotism, social psychology and environmental cues to help plan and execute some of his ‘tricks’, Brown’s previous shows have come under criticism from some sections of the television audience for making people believe that they were living in an apocalyptic zombie world while a 2006 show The Heist had unwitting people get a sudden urge to take part in the armed robbery of a security van.   

Taking to Twitter overnight, Brown said the stories being published this week about his new show were completely false.

He soon then joked that he could now reveal what his new show was actually about.

Article in @thesunnewspaper saying my next show is about changing sexuality: total rubbish. Thanks 4 that, being printed everywhere as fact.

— Derren Brown (@DerrenBrown) February 18, 2013

Exclusive: the next show is changing the Sun into a publication that reports facts.

— Derren Brown (@DerrenBrown) February 18, 2013

The 41-year-old, a marriage equality advocate who has been in a long-term relationship for the past five years, only publicly came out as gay in 2007.

Before accepting his sexuality, Brown admitted to having spent some time with the Living Waters Christian group undergoing reparative or ‘ex-gay’ therapy in a futile attempt to alter his identity.

“Friends of mine were in it so I was kind of aware of it. I just felt it was misguided,” Brown told The Sun in April 2011.

“It was a convenient way of getting around not quite embracing the whole gay thing.

“It was more interesting than, ‘Read your Bible and all your problems will go away’. It had a bit of depth and psychology to it, but it was just based on a false premise.

“When I got to my early 30s I realised that it [being gay] wasn’t going to go away.”