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Naya Rivera wows as the host of the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco

When you tell a group of lesbian and bisexual women that both Naya Rivera and Sara Ramirez will be in the same room together, there is bound to be excitement. But when you tell that same group of women that the Glee and Grey’s Anatomy stars will be together to support a major gay advocacy organization at a biggest gay awards show around (besides, possibly, the Tonys) in the gayest city in the country, expect passing out and mass hysteria to follow.

Much to the credit of the well-heeled crowd at the 2011 GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco, no one rushed the stage or, as far as I know, fainted during the event. Naya, who self-described her character as “the majestic mean girl, the luscious lady-loving Santana” hosted the show in front of a full ballroom at the Marriott Marquis in downtown San Francisco.

The evening began with the celebrity guests walking the blue carpet, courtesy one of the evening’s big sponsors Roxx Vodka. The running joke on stage was every time someone said Roxx (pronounced “rocks”), the company would donate $100 to GLAAD. So there was endless talk of this or that “rocking” or having “rocked” and all other conjugations, which was followed by the canned sound effect of a cha-ching from a cash register. Hey, it was for a good cause.

Naya was the first major female star to take the blue carpet. Her appearance in the entryway brought an onslaught of flashbulbs from the assembled media. She was gracious enough to stop by our spot along the rope line and answer a few questions.

AfterEllen: When I asked readers on Twitter for questions for you what questions they had for you, an overwhelming number of them just said, “Tell her thank you,” “Tell her she helped me come to terms with my sexuality,” “Tell her she helped me come out,” and even “Tell her she saved my life.” Do you feel that responsibility while you’re playing Santana?

Naya Rivera: Yeah, I absolutely do. I’ve gotten an overwhelming number of tweets and fan letters that are from girls in high school, 17, who are struggling with coming out and their sexuality. They say things like, “Thank you for being so brave.” “I came out to my friends or I came out to my parents.” To me I feel very honored that I am helping people in such a difficult time in their lives. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

AE: Your AfterEllen fans live tweet every episode using the hashtag #gaysharks, so you can check that out next time if you want. How big a role did the fans have in pushing the writers to go deeper into the Brittany and Santana relationship?

NR: I would say 100 percent. I feel like the fans are actually fully responsible for the place that Santana’s character has been taken and her storyline. I feel like they weren’t really sure what they were going to do with it and if it would make an impact. And the response has been just overwhelming. They are the reason why I am where I am right now.

AE: How does it feel having such a large lesbian fanbase?

NR: It’s amazing. I never thought in a million years that I would have a strong fanbase and people that latch onto the character and her storyline so much. I just feel honestly blessed and honored to just do what I do and be a part of this. So I thank them, and I owe them everything.

AE: We’re in the midst of our annual season of respectful objectification we call the AfterEllen.com Hot 100. I think you’re going to do very, very well this year. Who would you say is your Hot 100 picks?

NR: Are we talking women in general?

AE: Yep.

NR: It’s so hard, I don’t think I can pick, there are so many beautiful women that I look up to.

AE: I know it’s a tough question. You can give me two or three then.

NR: I know that that girl, I forgot her name, who is No. 1 on the Maxim Hot 100 now, she is gorgeous. [Rosie Huntington Whiteley.] And then I would also say Camila Alves [a Brazilian model and TV personality] because I just look up to her. And Halle Berry, of course. She is my idol.

AE: Sara Ramirez will be here as well. She is an amazing singer. How about getting her on Glee?

NR: I want to. I want to badly. I want her to play my mother or something.

AE: I want her to be your cool lesbian aunt.

NR: I am so excited to meet her and I watch Grey’s Anatomy. I watched the musical episode and she sings wonderfully.

AE: And, finally, how has this affected your relationship with Heather Morris? I know you were both friends already. Have you discussed what this storyline means to your fans? What has it done for your relationship?

NR: I think we both had an understanding from the beginning of how our characters interacted. I think we’ve both done a good job and I commend her. It’s stretched our acting skills and chops and challenged us. And I think it’s brought us closer.

Oh, and Naya had a little something to say to all her ardent, loyal fans on AfterEllen as well

I apologize for the terrible, jittery video. My hands were shaking at that point for some unknown (cough, Naya, cough) reason.

Other stars to walk the press line included the perennially dimpled Mario Lopez, Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, True Blood star Nelsan Ellis (who plays Lafayette) and Bravo reality star from Tabatha’s Salon Takeover Tabatha Coffey. The latter was particularly delightful, joking about who she would pick other than her partner of 13 years for the AfterEllen Hot 100 List (Mila Kunis, shhh, don’t tell her partner) and being generally lovely and not at all scary. We’ve all seen her yell on that show — so you know what I’m talking about.

AfterEllen: When is the fourth season going to start and what can we expect?

Tabatha Coffey: Oh, well, you always know with me that you can expect me losing my temper and being a little crazy. The great thing this season I am also taking over non-salons. So I’m doing salon businesses as well as non-salons. So I am very excited about that.

AE: What sort of non-salons?

TC: Small businesses. You know I’ve always had the philosophy that business is business. So I’m taking my expertise, which is definitely hairdressing salons, but also going into small businesses that are struggling and helping them to turn around.

AE: You’re going to fix the recession!

TC: I would like to try to do my small part.

AE: What kind of impact do you think out reality stars like yourself have on the community and how is it different than, say, people playing fictional gay and lesbian characters?

TC: I think the difference with reality television personalities and actors and actresses, it’s different and not different. I think it’s important that people know who you see on TV is really me. It’s a portion of me, you see me in my work mode and sometimes you see me not at my best. But it’s truly me. And I expose myself. I talk about the fact that I’m a lesbian, I talk about the fact that it was hard for me to come out, I talk about my partner of 13 years. I think it’s really important for the reality people in the GLBT community to come out and be proud and talk about it so that everyone at home watching us can see that we are diversified as everyone on the planet is diversified. [We need to] show the face of what our community is all about so that we can get equal rights.

Out director Lisa Cholodenko also walked the carpet, and spoke about both her Oscar-nominated film The Kids Are All Right and the rumors about that Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day adaptation. The Kids Are All Right went on to win the Outstanding Film — Wide Release later that night during the award show.

AfterEllen: The Kids Are All Right had great critical response and was nominated for an Oscar. But it had kind of an interesting response in the lesbian community — there was a little bit of a split. There was a vocal group that was, let’s face it, mad that Jules slept with a man. Was that something you were expecting when the movie came out?

Lisa Cholodenko: I didn’t expect it, but I didn’t dwell on it too much. I just thought that if this is an experience I can identify with and resonates for me, I am just coming from the place with this film that if it has an impact on me personally than I feel like it’s true and I am comfortable putting it out there. So I know that’s a polarizing idea and I respect everyone on all ends of that continuum. But, you know, it just comes from a more personal place.

AE: Your next film is obviously a departure then, Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, Very Bad, No Good Day.

LC: Yeah, that ended up in the press, but I’m still in the middle of figuring out my next project.

AE: So what about that sort of project interests you though in the first place?

LC: I have a 5-year-old kid and it’s a book that I loved when I was young. I bought it for him. I thought it would be kind of a delight to do a family film with a kid’s perspective.

AE: Well, it’s much different than your other films which are much more mature and just adult.

LC: Yeah, I think having a kid opens up your world and shifts your values around and makes you want to focus on a whole range of things. That is just something that is in my life every day.

AE: Any chance Alexander could have two mommies or two daddies?

LC: Probably not in the context in which it’s being made. But maybe the spin-off.

Cholodenko brought her 5-year-old son with her on stage to accept her award that night.

Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall was the last female star on the blue carpet. She was honored with the Golden Gate Award later that evening.

AfterEllen: Samantha famously had a same-sex relationship on the show. Did that open you up to a lot more lesbian fans and what kind of response did you get because of that relationship?

Kim Cattrall: You know I have had support from the gay and lesbian community since the beginning of my career and I am so grateful for that. Once you have that community behind you, everything is possible. They are fans for life. And I have been so fortunate having that from a very early age and it continues. As I get older, they get older and they bring their friends and children. New generations.

AE: If, just for fun, Sex and the City was about a group of gay women who do you think Samantha might have hooked up with from the group?

KC: You know, I really hate to mix them. I think Sonia Braga still. I couldn’t have done better than that. She is an extraordinary women and we had so much fun together. We now go to tennis matches together. We were fast friends and are still fast friends.

With the red carpet over the waiting for the show began in earnest. Naya came out in a new white dress (also lovely) and wowed the card from the start.

I’d also like you to know that her “pull out of my tits” and “how hot was she” lines weretotally ad libbed. They were definitely not on the teleprompter. And don’t worry, we’ll get back to that promise of a “sweet lady kisses” auction in a minute.

Naya introduced Sara after her opening monologue. The two reigning lesbian Latina characters on primetime broadcast television hugged as they passed each other on stage. No, I don’t have a picture. But I do have another one from backstage courtesy GLAAD.

Sara didn’t walk the blue carpet either, much to many a gay lady’s (and gay fella’s) disappointment. She came out on stage to introduce the 25th anniversary of GLAAD and clips of the group’s work in the past year. She said, “GLAAD makes sure that every life is valued. We should all be accepted and respected.”

And then she was gone again, in a flash. But GLAAD reports that backstage Naya and Sara had a little convo of their own.

The Local Hero winner was tech journalist Kara Swisher (right, below), the co-founder of All Things Digital. She walked the carpet with her partner and their children. And in interviews and on stage, she was a whip smart delight. She joked that the white iPhone was “gay” and said “no one cares” in the tech world if you’re gay. Out tech geeks will truly inherit the Earth.

“The internet is one of the earliest places gays and lesbians were able to communicate with each other out in the open. Gays were one of the first adopters of the internet. It’s a tolerant medium for freedom…. I always say the world only spins forward. If there is an ability to talk to the world, people begin to understand you. Knowledge is power. And if people know about you, they hate you just a little bit less.”

And on a less serious note, Swisher said when asked who would be on her AfterEllen Hot 100 list, “Naya Rivera looks pretty good tonight” as well as Angelina Jolie and family friend Jane Lynch.

Then Naya was back to play a game called Glee Gone GLAAD. She pulled two “mega fans” from the audience to play the quiz show, with the prize being two tickets to next year’s GLAAD Media Awards. Two women contestants made it on stage. Questions ranged for “What is the name of Brittany’s new internet talk show, which I’m a huge fan of?” (“Fondue for Two,” duh) and the titles of various episodes. In the end, both contestants got tickets for next year’s show. p.s. Every single #gayshark-ing AfterEllen reader would have kicked those two contestants butts at that game — I’m just saying.

Cattrall came out to accept her Golden Gate Awards with a funny speech filled with gay culture inside jokes. Like, seriously, can the fellas at AfterElton.com explain this insistence on using full first names?

The night’s other big winners were out gay artist Christian Chavez, who won the Spanish-Language Music Artist Award, Dustin Lance Black who accepted the Outstanding Documentary for 8: The Mormon Proposition and AT&T who took the Corporate Leader Award home.

After some montages, moving testimonials and even a very acrobatic performance by a very muscular man in a very tiny bikini bottom from Cirque du Soleil, Naya came back to wrap up the evening. But, not before she made good on her promise to auction off “sweet lady kisses.”

A gentleman won the first kiss, with a bid of $3,500. Though his little extra ass tap at the end was not entirely gentlemanly. But, come on, you can’t really blame a guy for going for it.

But then a lady from the audience matched his bid and we finally got actual sweet lady kisses. It was more of a peck, and there was no accompanying pat. See, a lady knows how to treat a lady.

And with two quick kisses Naya raised $7,000 in less than a minute. If she ever needs a second job — not that she ever would — might I suggest opening a kissing booth? Before signing off to the GLAAD Awards crowd, Naya said “my heart is a Slushee full of love and I want to toss it all over you.”

I think I speak for everyone in the audience when I say the feeling was very, very mutual.

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