Gay People You Thought Were Straight

Ricky Martin, Kevin Spacey and Ellen Page

Guillermo Diaz (of "Scandal")

Richard Hatch.

Johnny Weir.

Adam Rippon

Frankie Grande

Andy Cohen

The entire cast of both versions of QUEER EYE.

Going way back now... Roy Stuart (Corporal Boyle from "Gomer Pyle USMC")

Liberace.

Robert Reed from The Brady Bunch

R6 great choice!

Brandon Flynn

Aaron Hernandez

Wentworth Miller

Luke Evans

Paris Dennard

Jim McGreevey

Israeli actor Ran Danker

Joey Pollari and Connor Jessup

Samantha Fox munches box?

She's openly gay

Samantha Fox came out years ago. Her long-term girlfriend is/was a market stall trader or something like that. It was in the papers in a kind of 'how the mighty have fallen' way with Sam Fox being papped working in a market.

Matt Bomer. I had no idea; didn't ping to me at all.

Kelly McGillis Meredith Baxter (She thought she was straight, too, though.)

Joan Jett

R20 True when they were famous. Now it's pretty obvious.

Cynthia Nixon.

Kate Pierson

Ryan Seacrest.

I knew someone who was sincerely shocked when George Michael was outed in the 90s. No, not a straight frau. A gay guy.

I know a gay guy who was shocked when Kevin Spacey came out

Bob Conrad

Will Estes has never been married and hasn't dated anyone as far as I know

R28 He has seven kids

John Travolta

Still embarrassed , even as a straight woman that George Michael being outed shocked me. Of course my Generation Z daughter had me upload Wham videos on youtube and humiliated me by being extra ,going over the "clues". The only "clue" which, back in the day I put in the recesses of my mind was Andrew and George in the pilot's uniforms in the Club Tropicana video.

My daughter said with me missing all the tennis ball short stuffing, the Bouffant and getting a very small clue that George would never impregnate me because him and Andrew wore pilot's uniform in a video meant that I was either nearly "too sophisticated for my own good" or real fool. I said that it was a different time outside of the Gay community. Gays were seen as either sexless or "sex animals " who got AIDS and died. I'm glad she has to think hard to conceive of that paradigm.

To think that there was a time that I thought that if George Michael impregnated a lot of English women the teeth of the nation would improve. Him and Princess Diana were the first white English people who I saw with good, white teeth in the media.

Tim Tebow

I remember a female co- worker being stunned when Rosie O'Donnell came out. She was genuinely surprised.

What the hell is R32 on about?

I agree with Kate Pierson, that one surprised me.

[quote] [R28] He has seven kids

He's also circumcised, but that doesn't make him Jewish.

Bruce Willis

Todd Glass

Nick Scotti (ex- YOUNG & THE RESTLESS; KISS ME, GUIDO)

Abraham Lincoln

Justin Bieber, i thought she was straight

[R32} You know back then a lot of men look feminine hell look at Prince. The only reason your daughter is saying that is because George was gay. If David Bowie, Prince, Michael Jackson or Marin Gore were outed as gay people will be saying the same thing.

Those of us who lived during that time, granted it was twenty yeast ago. People were shook when the news hit. George took Clinton of the news circle for awhile.

R42 is right R32, pretty much every male artist looked they might be gay in the 80s. They wore more eyeliner than I did, and that's saying something.

Jane Velez-Mitchell Steve Kornacki

Rick Mercer, Canadian comedian and actor.

R27 - yeah.

Kevin Spacey.

Since when is Nick Scotti gay r39?

MIKE DOYLE

Nate Berkus. Even my mom called it and she was shocked at how bad my gaydar was with this one

Sulu

It was only in the last seasons of Frasier that I found out the dad was gay.

Fiona Spence.

Duff Goldman, Ace of Cakes

I'm hardly ever surprised by the women for some reason

r53 Duff Goldman is engaged to a woman.

r30 -- you are aware that gay men can have kids, right?

R3, Nobody on the planet thought the Queer Eye guys were straight or Frankie Grande. You have got to be kidding me.

I thought r3 was facetious, r57

R58 Yeah, you're probably right. Let's hope so.

Russell Tovey

What's the deal with Roger Stone? He seems so gay but isn't he a straight swinger?

^ I assumed he was gay and in denial

I think he's just a cunt.

Him wear pilot’s uniform. Him have good teeth. You cave woman r32? Og grab you by hair. Drag you grammar lessons.

Luke Evans is the most masculine out actor there ever was.

Aaron Hernandez. Never would have taken him for gay.

Miss Grande for sure.

This will probably sound absurd, but I never once twigged Manilow was gay.

Also, the actor Richard Wilson (largely famous in the UK for the long-running sitcom One Foot in the Grave). Never pinged once in interviews.

Roger Stone has always seemed like the gayest man in the room. I met him during Watergate. No one could believe he was married to a woman.

Patricia Routledge

Spring Byington

Victor Garber.

Nathan Lane

John Benjamin Hickey

Maurice Chevalier (really!)

Claudette Colbert

When they were single, actors David Monahan and Larry Sullivan.

Dick Sargent

Earl Holliman - one of my earliest in life crushes - had no idea but delighted when I found out....

John Wesley Shipp

Daniel J. Travanti

Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson)

Tom Selleck (Magnum PI)

Another vote for Victor Garber

Nic Robuck (one of the Ford brothers from ONE LIFE TO LIVE)

He is on the left in the first pic.

Van Johnson.

Earl Holliman.

Damon Evans (fake Lionel from THE JEFFERSONS)

I didn't have a clue that Van Johnson was gay until I started posting on the datalounge

R54 Really!? I thought I read it somewhere he was! I guess I have perfect gaydar after all.

Aaron Rodgers

R86 I want to say Aaron as well. I remember watching a Superbowl one year, and I kept trying to figure out what the deal was. I think he was pinging to me, but I was thinking, no a pro football quarterback can't possibly be gay, so I was confused.

Silly R87

r87 is correct. No quarterback has ever been gay. We are ALL straight, all of us.

Walter Pidgeon

Saffron Burrows.

Alan Bates

As R40 said, Abraham Lincoln was a practicing homosexual.

Also, Sherman Hemsley surprised me.

David Alan Grier

[quote]Rick Mercer, Canadian comedian and actor.

Not a surprise to me.

There was talk about him for years before he came out.

Btw, Rick Mercer tried to get Conservative Cabinet Minister John Baird to officially come out, but he wouldn't do it.

Alec Baldwin Daniel J. Travanti Joseph Mazello( he was a real cute nerd in The Social Network)

[quote] Joseph Mazello

When did he come out?

He didn't come out. He is GAY though.

Squiggy from Laverne And Shirley

David Cassidy from The Partridge Family seemed gay to me. I saw a video on youtube. He was singing on some show ca. 1973 , his legs were pushed together the whole time as if he had a vagina.

Ryan Seacrest

[quote]Also, the actor Richard Wilson (largely famous in the UK for the long-running sitcom One Foot in the Grave). Never pinged once in interviews.

People on DL will know who Richard Wilson is if you remind them that he played Merlin's mentor Gaius on "Merlin" from 2008-2012. That's what he's best known for in these parts.

But there was talk about Richard Wilson being gay for years. It wasn't a surprise to me when he finally came out, although it may have surprised the UK public since he waited until late in life.

Lily Tomlin

Sherman Hemsley

Spring Byington

Sondheim, but I mean like way back when.

Brad Pitt

Clooney and Anal

Julie Andrews

Carol Burnett

Ed Asner

Gavin Macleod

Luke Evans

[quote]Lily Tomlin

I think Tomlin had been hinting at it for many years in some of her films, but some people may not have picked up on it.

Examples:

She played a divorced mother in "Nine To Five".

By the time of "Tea With Mussolini", she was playing a lesbian character who was dancing with women.

[quote]David Alan Grier

That was for the other thread.

Gay I thought were straight.... ALL SPEEDSKATERS

And they're all gay.

And thank you Jesus for that

Taylor Schilling

Kristen Stewart before 2013

I though she was straight not bi/lez

R119, if you were on DL a number of years ago during the Twilight films, there were loads of posters here who identified her as liking girls.

R120 if you were on DL a number of years ago during the Twilight films

I wasn’t!

after 2012 she was openly dating girls but wasn't announcing it and her mother outed her as bisexual in 2015

Bieber's beard Selena Gomez

people still think she's straight lol

I think Lily came out in a MS. Magazine interview back in the 70s.

Richard Chamberlain

This should only be for confirmed gays.

I thought Portia was straight during Ally McBeal.

Ricky Martin, TK Knight

Yes, Richard Chamberlain! We were watching Centennial when my mother casually mentioned that while he was very handsome, everyone knew that Richard was gay gay gay.

R125, do you mean T. R. Knight?

John Wayne.

Oh yes Joseph Mazello! Gay or not, he was in The Cure, I love that movie.

English 60s actress - Amanda Barrie.

R32, rumours that George Michael was gay had been doing the rounds for a long time. Perhaps you missed them because you're straight.

What are you talking about, r18? Samantha Fox's long-term partner was her manager Myra Stratton, who sadly died of cancer a couple of years ago. I haven't heard anything about this working down the market thing you're talking about.

Mary Wickes

James Woods

Definitely Russell Tovey - never before had I sensed such masculinity.

R132 - it was in one of the tabloids many years back. Possibly The Sun or The Mirror. I've had a quick google and can't find anything but this was pre-internet.

Apparently her family were market traders so perhaps I misremembered it but I definitely remember seeing a pic of her working on a market stall a long time after her successful years.

Sophie Ward

Louie Anderson

Tammy Lynn Michaels on Popular. I had no inkling she was a lezzie until the Melissa Etheridge connection.

Nancy Kulp (Miss Jane)

Sheila Kuehl (Zelda)

Roy Stuart (Corporal Boyle)

Richard Deacon (Fred Rutherford, Mel Cooley)

Meredith Baxter Birney.

Everyone knew Rock Hudson was gay, too. When I was little, pre-internet, I thought he was the hottest thing ever. I watched all his old movies. (I'm a woman.) I read those old movie magazines about him and took a look at his bride that he was married to for five minutes in the 1950s. His agent's secretary or something. At age 11, or however old I was, I said, "Okey doke, he is gay, and I don't care." Who the hell ever thought he wasn't gay?

I thought for a long time Cary Grant was straight and the gay rumors were just rumors, but really, when you look at his movies, as absolutely wonderful as he is, he's not generating heat. He just comes off as the kind of actor an actress would LOVE working with because there's no line crossing or funny business, no matter how intimate the scene. I think Bette Davis used to talk about that - said a strong woman opposite him on camera would eat him alive. Maybe that's why he and Katherine Hepburn had anti-chemistry in Bringing Up Baby.

Speaking of Katherine Hepburn

"Who the hell ever thought he wasn't gay?"

Pretty much everyone, that's why he had a career as a leading man.

No, pretty much everyone knew he was gay and pretended they didn't.

No, why would they pretend they didn't know? It's the opposite - people like you pretend they "always knew" when they didn't.

No, I always knew, my mother always knew, everyone I knew always knew.

Translation - they claim they knew and you claim you knew

Most straight people have lousy gaydar. Of course they didn't know.

Ricky Martin, George Michael and Ian McKellen

Of course people knew Rock Hudson was gay, I used to sit around Fire Island listening to the guys talk about all the times he was helped out of parties drunk. These guys don't live in a gay bubble, they tell their family and friends, none of whom dropped dead in shock. And believe it or not when people think someone is straight and it turns out they are gay, they don't think: "OMG!! And to think I saw his movies believing he was straight! The more fool I! I better tell people I knew all along!"

They don't care that much. When an actor who looks like Rock Hudson is unmarried with no visible girlfriend for decades on end people - even people who read fan magazines - get the picture. He was in a big TV show too - McMillan and Wife, and when he promoted it never dragged a beard along and alluded to his straight romantic life, so basically, yes, PEOPLE KNEW.

Leslie Gore

Steve Kornacki

Dusty Springfield

[quote]Most straight people have lousy gaydar. Of course they didn't know.

I agree.

It's a little different with the younger generation today -- they are a little more tuned in to gay culture.

But the majority of straights still have no clue who is gay.

I've been on this board for years and I remember the days when we had fangirls insisting Wentworth Miller was straight. And Clay Aiken.

And now it's happening with Shawn Mendes.

[quote]Leslie Gore

Lesley

Anthony Hopkins

do we have any proof on Duff Goldman? I always thought he pinged (and is hot)

George W. Bush

Kelly McGillis. What girl wouldn't want to be leaning on Tammy's shoulder in the Top Gun poster?

[quote]Duff Goldman? I always thought he pinged (and is hot)

Well, you were wrong about one. You might as well be wrong about the other.

Steve Kmetko.

Clint Eastwood.

[quote] Steve Kmetko.

Haven't thought about him in years. He's looking unrecognizable these days.