Do we like Tom Holland?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean court record and a long career of public-minded work, held back by one reported remark about trans people in 2022.
First, the mix-up. This Tom Holland is the English historian behind books like Dynasty and the co-host of The Rest Is History podcast, not the Spider-Man actor. He's mostly known for making Rome, Greece and the ancient world feel like a pub conversation.
The recent stoush was less a scandal than a farce. In July 2026 the historian praised Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey online, and Musk then posted that “Tom Holland” was a rude word. Plenty of people assumed he meant the actor. The historian replied that anyone skipping the film was missing out, with a cheeky “Your loss”, and said he hadn't realised it had become a culture-war flashpoint.
A week later the two Toms met on the podcast. The historian introduced his guest as “the real Tom Holland”, the actor said he was the other one and apologised for making him hard to Google. The historian shrugged it off. It's a rare story where everyone comes out of the mess looking good.
Now the harm check. The Telegraph reported in June 2022 that he told the Chalke Valley History Festival that claiming to be trans could be a way to climb the social pecking order, and the report mentioned the then Tory MP Jamie Wallis, who had come out as trans that year. Trans people would reasonably hear that as dismissive, and it's the one real mark here. I couldn't open the full article or find a response from him, so treat the detail with care.
On the planet, the evidence is thin but not worrying. A 2022 New Statesman interview was headed with his argument that climate politics needs Edmund Burke's “politics of the particular”. That reads as engaging with the issue, not denying it, though I only saw the opening of that interview. I found no sign of anti-vax talk, conspiracy theories or work with the usual grievance merchants.
The good stuff is mostly work done for the public. In 2024 he received the Sandford St Martin Trustees' Award for helping the public understand religion and its role in history. He also finds no court cases, lawsuits or accusations against him in the searches I ran. That's honestly a pretty short rap sheet.