Joanna Lumley has confirmed what many fans have long suspected about her Ab Fab character Patsy Stone.

Eagle-eyed viewers will have picked up on clues dropped over the course of the long-running show’s many series. In an early series Eddy mentions that during the 1970s in Morocco, Patsy underwent a sex change operation and briefly lived as a man; but, as Eddy says, “it fell off”.

Lumley told V magazine that it’s “completely normal” that Patsy is transgender.

“You go back and pick through it, the amount of gay references and ease with which it’s been put into the story, without it being dragged along like a great log of plot,” she told the magazine.

“It’s really normal that one of Edina’s ex-husbands now lives with his young boyfriend. It’s completely normal that Edina wants Saffy to be a lesbian or that Serge is gay and living in New York.

“It’s completely normal that Patsy is transgender.”

Writer and co-star Jennifer Saunders told the magazine of her abiding love for the gay community, who continue to adore the show despite its occasionally risqué humour. “We tried very hard,” says Saunders, “but [gay people] refused to be offended— and I admire them for that. Thank God you’re hanging on in there.”

Saunders went on to say that a “changing comedic climate” meant that future seasons of the show were unlikely to appear. “You can’t be rude about stuff anymore,” she said.

“Everyone’s so fucking sensitive about everything now.”

The upcoming movie contains a whopping 60 celebrity cameos from such luminaries Kate Moss (who meets an ignominious end at the hands of the gals), Dawn French, Rain Wilson, Graham Norton, Joan Collins, John Hamm as well as the return of show favourites like Bubble, Saffy and Edina’s long-suffering mother, played by June Whitfield.

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is out on July 1.