Nigel Owens

Nigel Owens
MBE

Owens officiating the 2009 English Premiership match between Bath and Leicester Tigers
Date of birth	(1971-06-18) 18 June 1971 (age 46)
Place of birth	Mynyddcerrig, near Cross Hands, Carmarthenshire, Wales
Occupation(s)	Rugby union referee
Rugby union career
Refereeing career Years Competition Apps 2001– 2002– 2002– 2003– 2007– 2015 Challenge Cup Heineken/Champions Cup Pro12 Test matches Rugby World Cup RWC Finals 9 98 149 76 13 1 Correct as of 12 April 2017

Nigel Owens MBE (born 18 June 1971) is a Welsh international rugby union referee. He is one of three professional referees at the Welsh Rugby Union, alongside Ben Whitehouse and Craig Evans. Owens is also known as a TV personality, as one of the presenters of the S4C Welsh language chat shows Jonathan and Bwrw'r Bar. Owens also hosts his own quiz programme Munud i Fynd. In 2011 he was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards.

Owens was born and raised in the village of Mynyddcerrig, near Cross Hands in Carmarthenshire, Wales. He is a fluent Welsh speaker. He was a school technician at Ysgol Gyfun Maes-yr-Yrfa () in Llanelli, the same school attended by Welsh international Dwayne Peel, and was a youth worker with Menter Cwm Gwendraeth. Before that he worked on a farm, for over a year, as a farmhand.

In May 2007, Owens publicly came out as gay in an interview with Wales on Sunday. Reaction was mostly supportive. Owens said that coming out was a difficult decision, and that he had contemplated suicide when he was 26.

It's such a big taboo to be gay in my line of work, I had to think very hard about it because I didn't want to jeopardise my career. Coming out was very difficult and I tried to live with who I really was for years. I knew I was 'different' from my late teens, but I was just living a lie.

Shortly after the 2007 Rugby World Cup, Owens was named 'Gay Sports Personality of the Year' at gay rights group Stonewall's awards ceremony in London. In 2011 he was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards. He was a patron of the LGBT Centre of Excellence Wales, until its disbandment in late 2012, but he is still that of the Wooden Spoon Society rugby charity. In 2013 Owens became a patron of Bullies Out charity in Wales. He has served as secretary, chairman and president of the Wales Federation of Young Farmers Clubs. Owens is a fan of Wrexham Football Club. Owens was subjected to anti-gay abuse when refereeing England and New Zealand in November 2014. This resulted in two spectators being banned from Twickenham for two years. In 2015, Owens was named 'Gay Sports Personality of the Decade' at Stonewall awards ceremony in London.