In the August 2006 issue of O magazine, Oprah Winfrey attempted to put to rest longstanding rumors that she is a lesbian. In a candid interview, Winfrey and best friend Gayle King straightforwardly addressed the gossip about their supposed lesbian relationship, stating that if they were gay they would have no problem with coming out about it. King says, “The truth is, if we were gay, we would so tell you, because there’s nothing wrong with being gay.” Winfrey agrees: “People think I’d be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn’t admit it? Oh, please.”
Their denial was splashed all across the media with headlines ranging from “Oprah: I’m Not a Lesbian” to “Oprah Is So Not Into Chicks,” but the interview with Winfrey and King was more than just another instance of a straight celebrity insisting on her heterosexuality. It revealed that being a lesbian is no longer the stigma that it was before Ellen DeGeneres came out on the cover of Time in 1997, while simultaneously showing that women’s sexuality remains a highly charged issue that is inextricably linked with power and inequality. A celebrity’s decision to come out often involves much agonizing over whether it will negatively affect their career, their box-office draw, their reputation and their fans.
So the fact that Winfrey and King insist that being gay is not a big deal represents a milestone in celebrities’ engagements with homosexuality-at least for women. Addressing gay rumors continues to be more problematic for gay men, as Lance Bass’ recent coming-out shows; he openly admitted his fears that coming out would negatively impact the success of the band ‘N Sync.
Though coming out for female celebrities is less difficult than it is for men-and in some cases female celebrities play the bisexual card to generate media interest in them as sex symbols-the ways that the media has pressured Winfrey to “come out” speaks volumes about society’s understanding of women in the world today.
In the O magazine interview, Winfrey states, “I understand why people think we’re gay. There isn’t a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it-how can you be this close without it being sexual? How else can you explain a level of intimacy where someone always loves you, always respects you, admires you?”
Winfrey’s description of her friendship with King sounds, to those of us living in the 21st century, suspiciously like a love relationship. But that does not mean that women have never been able to develop close, nonsexual relationships with their female friends. Up until the sexual revolution of the 20th-century that granted women the freedom to be openly sexual beings, women often had particularly close relationships with their female friends.
Historian Lillian Faderman examined these “romantic friendships” in her groundbreaking book, Surpassing the Love of Men, arguing that “These romantic friendships were love relationships in every sense except perhaps the genital.” In addition, society did not find these relationships to be threatening to the social order-something that has clearly changed over the course of the last century.
The fact that the media, stoked by popular interest in celebrities’ personal sexual lives, has been fanning the flames of rumor about Winfrey’s supposed lesbian relationship with King is about more than salacious gossip-mongering. It also indicates a deep distrust within our society of women who have achieved success. The lesbian rumors speak to a perception that a woman who is so successful, and who has arrived at that success without the overt support and help of a loving husband, is abnormal.
Indeed, lesbian rumors have dogged nearly all successful female celebrities in contemporary American society, from Hillary Clinton to Martha Stewart. These women are all powerful in their fields, self-confident to the media, and are intelligent, savvy businesswomen. They represent a major threat to the male-dominated fields in which they have achieved success.
Rumors of lesbianism have long been part and parcel of celebrity gossip in Hollywood, but similar judgments await Hollywood actresses who achieve their success without a husband (or string of husbands), from Jodie Foster to, most recently, Marcia Cross of Desperate Housewives.
In February 2005, Internet rumors sparked a media frenzy about the possibility that Cross would come out as a lesbian. Soon after the news hit national outlets including CNN, Cross’ publicist issued a press release stating that the rumors were not true, but that “She is, however, very supportive of the gay and lesbian community.”
Cross went on the talk show The View shortly afterward, in an appearance scheduled before the gossip erupted, and took the opportunity to state on the air that she is not a lesbian. When asked why she thought the rumor had started, she said, “It’s very odd and I assume it’s what comes with being 42 and single. I don’t know if they needed to find a reason why I wasn’t married.”Cross became engaged in August 2005 to stockbroker Tom Mahoney, whom she married in June 2006.
Cross’ suggestion for why the rumor began speaks to longstanding, sexist beliefs about women who remain unmarried. While unmarried older men are rarely rumored to be gay, older single women are considered to be unnatural; lesbianism is often seen as the answer to the mystery of how a woman could live on her own without a man.
The rumors about professional boxer Laila Ali’s sexuality that arose in the fall of 2005 further underscore the connection in popular consciousness between a woman’s marital status and her sexuality. As Ali was undergoing a divorce from her husband, rumors surfaced that the boxer, who is the daughter of legendary Muhammad Ali, was in a lesbian relationship with rapper and singer Queen Latifah.
Laila Ali quickly issued a press release declaring that she is not a lesbian, stating, “Yes, I am in the process of getting a divorce, but I am not dating, nor will I ever be dating a woman, because I am not gay. It is unfortunate that my divorce has started rumors in the media that are untrue.” Her denial lacked the gay-positive spin of Cross and Winfrey, which may reflect homophobia on Ali’s part, but likely also reflects the homophobic nature of professional boxing. Indeed, women’s sports in general which is often rife with rumors of lesbianism, particularly in the WBNA is still one of the more homophobic arenas of public life.
The ways that Winfrey, Cross and Ali have addressed these lesbian rumors indicate that although the times have certainly changed for lesbians in this society, we have by no means reached a place where one’s sexuality does not matter. If a woman lacks a male partner, or even if she has a male partner but he is perceived to be the subordinate one in their relationship, she is opening herself up to rumors of lesbianism.
Female celebrities who face lesbian rumors do have alternatives to issuing statements that they are heterosexual; they may choose to state that their sexuality is a private issue that they do not discuss, or they may choose, eventually, to come out. Rock icon Joan Jett, who has long been rumored to be a lesbian and has always been very welcoming of her lesbian fans, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun this past spring: “I never made any kind of statement about my personal life on any level. I never made any proclamations. So I don’t know where people are getting that from.”
And L Word sex symbol Katherine Moennig, who has also been rumored to be a lesbian, has long insisted that she does not discuss her sexuality. She told USA Today in February 2005, “When it comes to my life and what I do off-screen, I don’t want to ruin that. What people do behind closed doors is their business.”
Cast mate Mia Kirshner told Curve in July 2006, “I just don’t think it matters if people are gay or straight. Why would you assume that I was straight? What difference does it make? I’m very comfortable saying that I think men are beautiful and I think women are beautiful. I think it’s very personal and I just don’t think it matters anymore.”
>But although an insistence on one’s personal privacy is the right of every individual, celebrity or otherwise, the idea that one’s sexual identity does not matter is challenged every day by the political battles waged on issues ranging from the rights of LGBT employees in the workplace to the national debate on gay marriage.
Celebrities such as Cynthia Nixon, Sheryl Swoopes, and Portia de Rossi, who carefully skirted questions about their sexuality before they decided to come out of the closet, have admitted that privacy aside, coming-out is not about revealing what goes on in one’s bedroom. All three women have suggested that coming-out is, at its most basic level, about being honest about who they are as individuals.
When Nixon came out to the New York Daily News in September 2004, she said, “My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy.”
Last October, Sheryl Swoopes told ESPN magazine, “I’m just at a point in my life where I’m tired of having to pretend to be somebody I’m not. I’m tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love.”
When Portia de Rossi spoke with The Advocate in September 2005 she crystallized, for many, the complex and conflicting feelings about coming out. “The most important thing for me was to never, ever, ever deny it,” she said of her years of silence about her relationship with Francesca Gregorini. “But I didn’t really have the courage to talk about it. I was thinking, Well, the people who need to know I’m gay know, and I’m somehow living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay, but it’s not a big political platform. I justified it in so many ways. Believe me, I had a very, very long and difficult struggle with my sexuality.”
For female celebrities in 2006, the question of how to address rumors of lesbianism “which often arise for women who are successful and single, whether they are gay or not” no longer needs to be addressed with flat-out denial. Cross and Winfrey’s embracing of the LGBT community, even while they situate themselves as heterosexual, is a positive sign for gays and lesbians. It shows that the stigma that once came with those pesky lesbian rumors has lessened to a considerable degree.
For those such as de Rossi, Nixon, and Swoopes, who have chosen to come out in recent years, the more tolerant atmosphere has meant that their careers have not taken an automatic nosedive. That fear has been one of the main deterrents to coming out for celebrities in the past, and though it may still prevent many male celebrities from coming out, it seems that the situation, in this one particular case, is more beneficial for women.
