Why Patrick Stewart wants US citizenship

Sir Patrick Stewart is applying for US citizenship for a pretty serious reason.

The British actor has resided in America for several years and never had the urge to apply for citizenship before, but he is strongly opposed to the viewpoints of the new commander-in-chief and admits he can’t make his voice heard alongside his many American friends unless he is recognised as a legal member of the country.

Last month, Stewart tweeted from Washington D.C. saying he had the “worst sleep” being “less than 300yds” from where the President sleeps.

When quized about what he meant on talk show ‘The View’, he told Whoopi Goldberg: “I did not directly insult your president.”

To which she swiftly replied: “Not mine.”

Patrick then explained: “He’s not mine either. We have our own problems. We have Brexit.

“I’m not a citizen. However, there is, maybe it’s the only good thing as the result of this election: I am now applying for citizenship because I want to be an American too, because all of my friends in Washington said, ‘There is one thing you can do. Fight, fight, oppose, oppose.’ But I can’t do it because I’m not a citizen.”

The 76-year-old star – who has two children from his first marriage and wed third spouse Sunny Ozell in 2013 – thinks social media is a platform for making “serious” statements as well as light hearted ones.

He told The Rake magazine: “Of course, there is an individual in the United States who is giving Twitter a very bad name, but I think it would be a narrow-minded point of view to stop because of that.

“What I do on social media – a lot of which is with the support and advice of my wife, who has a much more intensive and surefooted way of understanding social media than I have – is meant for humour and for storytelling, and occasionally for making statements that are serious and on which we hope to have an impact.”