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Being gay of course isn’t a bad thing – it's just who you are. Right? Well, not if you are a celebrity. While there have been plenty celebrities who have declared their orientation loudly and proudly, others have chosen to keep mum about it. Why? Because it should not matter what celebrities do in their personal lives. They are actors who play characters in movies and provide us with entertainment. And every now and then, one of them commits a heartwarming act of generosity and makes you feel better about the human race in general. They make us dream of things that could have been or just might be and inspire us to live our life a little better.
So whether they make us cry or smile, laugh or dream, weep or hope – what they do behind closed doors, as long as it is not hurtful to anyone or illegal is supposed to be their business. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the world goes round. With paparazzi around every corner willing to sell their soul to the devil for one deal-of-a-lifetime picture and plenty of publications ready to pay in blood for however personal or illicit a detail about popular celebs, even closed doors and drapes aren’t enough to grant celebs any privacy. As a result, we have these 15 celebs who were yanked out of the closet by paparazzi or other celebs with a foot-in-mouth disease. So they gracefully acquiesced to their orientation, but the fact remains that their stepping out was never truly their choice.
Kristen Stewart: Forced To Reveal She Swings Both Ways
So Kristen Stewart is no strange to paparazzi-induced "outings." Her much-hyped romance with her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson came to a crashing end when one lucky photographer caught her kissing her Snow White and the Huntsman director, Rupert Sanders, who was married at the time to Liberty Ross. A public apology later, and innumerable personal apologies to Pattinson, she still got dumped. After her tough breakup with Robert, speculation rose that Kristen was dating her assistant Alicia Cargile when the two showed major PDA in Hawaii. They called it quits last October when Alicia didn't want to be part of the star's "jet-setting life anymore." Somewhere between this, she dated French singer Soko as well as the ex-girlfriend of Cara Delevingne, St. Vincent. Nowadays she is dating Stella Maxwell but calls herself bis*xual and open to dating men again.
Colton Haynes: Hiding Gave Him Severe Anxiety
So this uber-good looking Teen Wolf star came out to his family when he was just 14. While most of his family accepted him, apparently his estranged father committed suic*de because his son turned out gay. Despite the fact that his father married seven times and was mostly estranged from almost all of his family, Colton Haynes still held his head high, but Hollywood and agents forced him to keep mum about his s*xuality and even date high-profile women for the sake of appearances. Haynes admits that there was intense pressure on him to appear “normal” to keep up his fan following and says that he was forced to be someone he wasn’t for a long, long time. In fact, Haynes had to take treatment for his anxiety since he was forced to keep his orientation a secret for such a long time. Later, he finally confirmed the rumors in an interview and stated that coming out was a relief for him. In 2017, Haynes finally married his fiancé, celebrity florist Jeff Leatham.
Matt Bomer: He Was Forced To Acknowledge That He Was Already Out
Matt Bomer is the kind of guy that any girl would dump her guy for, even though he is out and about, as they say. So when he was outed as gay, dudes the world over heaved a sigh of relief. The only glitch was that his s*xuality at the time of his so-called outing by a certain gossip website wasn’t really an “outing,” considering he was already living with his partner Simon Halls, who he married in 2011 and raises three kids with. The so-called outing showed Matt in a lip lock with another guy but the picture in question was about nine years old already. The only thing Matt Bomer didn’t do was brag about his orientation since his show White Collar was taking off in a big way and studio execs felt he needed to continue being appealing to the women audience as well. Frankly, he was already living his life as a happy and proud gay man. The outing came too late considering he had already stepped out of his own volition.
Jodie Foster: Ricky Gervais Tried To Out Her At An Awards Ceremony
Jodie Foster is a true blue bold gal. And when she was ready, she came out of the closet. Jodie had publicly come out on her own at the 2013 Golden Globes but a whole year before, at the 2012 Golden Globes, host Ricky Gervais commented on her rumored interest in women. Very classy, isn't it? After having two children with her ex-partner Cydney Bernard, Jodie then married Alexandra Hedison in 2014. If you have ever come across the rather famous “gay silence” meme that shows a young girl raising her eyebrows, licking her lips and giving an expression that somewhere between a smirk and a grimace – you just encountered a 17-year-old Jodie Foster being quizzed about her boyfriend preferences. Too young to come out, Foster was achingly uncomfortable with the line of questioning but managed to hold her own.
Raven Symone: She Had To Address The Constant Rumors
Raven Symone is gay, and like most celebrities, she assumed that this part of her life was all hers. Well, she was wrong. There were so many rumors about her, and so many nasty questions the media threw at her that she eventually went on Oprah to confirm the rumors herself. Before that, when the Supreme Court ruled that the ban on same-s*x marriage is unconstitutional in 2013, Raven tweeted, "I can finally get married! Yay government! So proud of you." Asked to explain, Raven replied, "That was my way of saying I'm proud of the country. But, I will say that I'm in an amazing, happy relationship with my partner. A woman." She also added, "I don't want to be labeled 'gay.' I want to be labeled 'a human who loves humans.' I'm tired of being labeled. I'm an American. I'm not an African American; I'm an American."
Clay Aiken: Rosie O'Donnell Accidentally Outed Him
American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken came out due to a long and rather awkward feud between talk show hosts Kelly Ripa and Rosie O'Donnell. In 2006, Aiken was a guest co-host with Regis and Kelly and during one take, Aiken put his hand over Ripa's mouth to comically shut her up for him to ask a question. Ripa said, "I don't know where that hand's been, honey." A few days later O'Donnell criticized Ripa's jab at Aiken, calling it "homophobic." She went on to say, "If that was a straight man, if that was a cute man, if that was a guy that she didn't question about his s*xuality, she would have said a different thing." O'Donnell may have thought that she was speaking in Aiken’s defence, except that Aiken hadn’t stepped out of the closet. It actually took him another two years to officially come out and he did so in a cover story for People, apparently for the sake of his newborn son. Said Aiken, "I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn't raised that way, and I'm not going to raise a child to do that."
Ellen Page: Brett Ratner Publicly Outed Her
Best known as Juno in the movie with the same name, Ellen Page has been in the showbiz since she was 10 – first as a child artist and then moving on to being an adult actor. In a social post in November 2017, Ellen Page accused director Brett Ratner of making a homophobic remark against her by asking another woman to have s*x with her. He allegedly said, “You should sleep with her to make her realize she’s gay” during the making of X-Men: The Last Stand. At the time Ellen was just 18 and while she had an inkling about being gay, she was definitely not ready to step out of the closet and herself didn’t quite know her s*xual orientation. Her first meeting with Brett Ratner left her shell-shocked and in trauma and it took years for her to come to terms with the same. "He ‘outed’ me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic," said Ellen. Actor Anna Paquin, one of the X-Men stars, backed Page: “I was there when that comment was made. I stand with you.”
Neil Patrick Harris: He Ended The Rumors With A Public Statement
Another victim of malicious internet attacks, Neil Patrick Harris was fairly attacked with all kinds of nasty whispers online. It was enough to shake him and to make him brainstorm with his team how to make a "succinct and positive" statement about his s*xuality. Harris officially came out in a statement to People in November 2006, silencing bloggers once and for all: "Rather than ignore those who choose to publish their opinions without actually talking to me, I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest and feel most fortunate to be working with wonderful people in the business I love." As to the repercussions, Harris later said, "No one was ever old school Hollywood, with a cigar in their mouth, saying 'You can't do this, see! It'll ruin your career, kid!'" Succinct and positive, indeed.
Carrie Brownstein: She Was Outed By Two Different Publications
When actor, writer, musician and activist Carrie Brownstein was just 21, she was publicly outed by a magazine which clearly mentioned her relationship with then-bandmate Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. The magazine also divulged that the hit song “One More Hour” was about their eventual breakup. This article was read by her dad, and at the time, Carrie was firmly in the closet with locked doors: "I hadn't seen the article, and I got a phone call. My dad called me and was like, 'The Spin article's out. Um, do you want to let me know what's going on?' The ground was pulled out from underneath me… my dad did not know that Corin and I had ever dated, or that I even dated girls." In 2006, yet another publication labeled her as openly gay. She finally put all rumors to rest in another interview, "It's weird because no one's actually ever asked me. People just always assume, like, you're this or that. It's like, 'OK. I'm bis*xual. Just ask!’”
Luke Evans: Ian McKellen Outed Him Inadvertently
So Ian McKellen accidentally outed a few of his fellow actors in an interview talking about The Hobbit. McKellen said, "I would say that has been done in this regard in the last ten years in the industry a lot. Just look only how many openly gay actors in The Hobbit were there: two of the dwarves, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry, Lee Pace. In The Lord of the Rings, I was the only one facing the camera. The others were my make-up artist and one from the wardrobe team. That's a progress, right?" Lee Pace has still not stepped out, neither confirming nor denying the rumors. And while Luke Evans was openly gay in London, Hollywood turned him into a side-stepping expert but he has now officially been out for a few years. Asked if Hollywood’s ready for a gay action hero, the 37-year-old says, “I don’t feel they’re connected. Talent, success, what you do in your personal life – I don’t see how one should have an effect on the other.”
Thomas Dekker: He Was Nearly Outed By A Colleague So He Decided To Come Out On His Own Terms
Actor Thomas Dekker is another victim in the long list of gay celebs who were outed by someone else wanting to earn some public brownie points. But like many others before him, Dekker stepped up and took charge of the situation despite former Heroes executive producer Bryan Fuller nearly “outing” him while accepting the Outfest Achievement Award in 2017 July. Thomas made a public Instagram statement: “My s*xual orientation once again came into question this week when a prominent gay man used an awards acceptance speech to ‘out’ me. I thank him because it presents a prime opportunity for me to publicly say that I am indeed a man who proudly loves other men. In fact, this April, I married my husband and I could not be happier. I have never lied to the press about the fluidity of my s*xuality but this man claiming that I came out is not true. Because I have not ‘officially’ until this moment. I simply refuse to be robbed of the glorious joy that belongs to me, to say the words myself. ‘I’m gay.’ Those words are a badge of honor that no one can steal.”
Lance Bass: He Bullied Until He Finally Broke Down
In 2006, Lance Bass, former NSYNC member came out of the closet. However, it was against his will and from so-called popular bloggers. Lance said in 2015, "Two years before I came out I was really bullied on the internet by bloggers, that's when Perez Hilton just started and was just really malicious against me. So, because of the bloggers like him hounding me, all the other magazines started calling me and saying, 'Look, we know you're gay, you can write the story with or without us, but we have to write it,' I decided to go with People… I had 24 hours to decide if I was going to come out or not, and within 24 hours it was in the stands." In the story, Lance stated “The thing is, I'm not ashamed – that's the one thing I want to say. I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happier than I've been my whole life. I'm just happy.”
Billie Jean King: She Was Exposed By An Ex-Lover
With Emma Stone’s latest Battle of the S*xes having received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, it’s time to think back to the 70s when Billie Jean King was outed by her former lover Marilyn Barnett. This shameful “fall” for Billie-Jean came after her historic win against Bobby Riggs and after she successfully proved that women belonged at the tennis court as they had the talent and the prowess. When a closeted Billie-Jean was being forced to end her relationship with her “hair-dresser” Marilyn – her former lover got revenge by outing her and demanding palimony. Though the case was lost, Billie- Jean paid the price by having to be on the court again and being viewed as a “pervert” and the stereotypical athlete who had to be a lesbian. It took this 73-year-old icon and activist many years before she could break out of her shell and the enforced shame.
Kevin Spacey: He Came Out To Deflect Allegations Of Assault
This guy chose to come out in the worst way possible. Seriously, when someone gets up and accuses you of s*xually assaulting them when they were a teen, you don’t say, “So sorry, but I’m gay.” People who are gay chose to be with people of the same s*x – underage boys are a big no-no. When Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of assaulting him when he was a teen, here’s what this Academy-award winner had to say in his “defence.” He stated, “I have a lot of respect and admiration for Anthony Rapp as an actor. I'm beyond horrified to hear his story. I honestly do not remember the encounter; it would have been over 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years. This story has encouraged me to address other things about my life. As those closest to me know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life, and I choose now to live as a gay man. I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior." Too little, too late, and absolutely horrible...
Ricky Martin: His Go-To Skin Expert Outed Him Publicly
Another victim of loose lips, Ricky was shocked the cat was inadvertently let out of the bag by his go-to skin expert. The speculations and the rumors were rife but then skin guru Ole Henriksen was asked in an interview who’d he like to take on a romantic getaway (aside from his partner). Said Henriksen: “I’d go for Stig Tøfting [former Danish soccer player], but since he’s straight, I’d say my client Ricky Martin.” Cha-ching! Of course, all this was way back in 2007 and Martin finally came out in 2010, in his own good time, calling himself fortunate and blessed to be that way. In 2016, Martin also said that he is attracted to both s*xes, "I know that I like both men and women, I’m against s*xual labels, we are simply human beings with emotional and s*xual needs. I am gay, men fascinate me, but I like to enjoy s*x in total freedom, so I’m open to [being with] a woman if I feel desire."
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