'Hip-Hop is the most homophobic genre there is. Ironically, it's also the most closeted community around.' — Tommy Boy Records CEO Tom Silverman to The Advocate, May 13, 2003.
'I got nothing against gay people. I hate the ones who don't come out. It's the closet ones that fuck with you.' — Comedian Eddie Griffin, as quoted by E! Online and reported in The Advocate, May 13, 2003.
'I live my life the way I want to live it. I am certainly not going to modify my life just to suit the paparazzi.' — Actress Portia de Rossi, who played Nelle on Ally McBeal, on being outed by tabloid photographers, to Australia's Melbourne Herald Sun, April 24. De Rossi was photographed kissing her girlfriend, Francesca Gregorini, who is Ringo Starr's stepdaughter.
'I start my day by reading seven newspapers every morning before I start writing. I get 166 magazines every month in the mail. I am a media junkie.' — Gay filmmaker John Waters to Phoenix's HeatStroke News, April 17.
'The worst reviews I've ever gotten have been in the gay press.' — Waters.
'I don't go to gay bars. I'm against all-gay or all-straight anything. I think separatism is defeat. I'm for mixing. I'm for sexual terrorism when you don't know who's what. That's why I like all the kids, they don't even know what they are, it doesn't matter. So no, I don't go to all-gay places, I don't have a rainbow flag.' — Waters.
'Did he sleep with another man? I would say yes. Look to where it matters: his work, where Shakespeare certainly writes about gay people. One part which I want to play is Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. His first line is: 'In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.' The audience knows that it's because his boyfriend has come to him to borrow money to get married.' — Actor Sir Ian McKellen on Shakespeare, to The Australian, April 22.
'Everything is in it. There's greed, there's jealousy, there's love, there's pain, there's hope, there's desperation, there's pride, there's friendship, there's betrayal. It's an amazing, amazing story. There's so much in it—it's so dense that it nearly reads like bad fiction. Obviously bisexual— which wasn't even an issue back then. There was no term for bisexuality—it was just the way society was. People made love to men and women. It was only later on you had to pick one side of the fence. It's amazing.' — Actor Colin Farrell on playing Alexander The Great in Oliver Stone's upcoming film on the fourth century B.C. king, to BBC Radio 1, April 24.
'We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values—looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful or just being famous. It's the most superficial part of the American dream and who would know better than me? The only thing that's going to bring you happiness is love and how you treat your fellow man and having compassion for one another.' — Madonna to Britain's Radio Times, April 24.
'I was comfortable in the industry that I was in, because there were other gay people around, and I never felt I had to make a statement of any kind. I was just a gay guy writing Broadway musicals. ... I was so grateful that I was not working in a Ford factory, you know? I mean, if I had been in almost any other business, I probably would have been very uncomfortable.' — Composer/lyricist Jerry Herman (Hello, Dolly; Mame; La Cage aux Folles) to D.C.'s Metro Weekly, April 24.
'I have always believed that you've got to be patient—that you cannot change these people, these horrible bigots. You cannot change a Pat Robertson or a Jesse Helms just by sitting him down and saying, 'You know, you're really on the wrong course here.' They've been brainwashed for a lifetime, and I don't think people realize that it can't happen overnight. Sometimes, extreme activism doesn't make a lot of sense.' — Gay composer/lyricist Jerry Herman.
'I felt I had a short time in the beginning. I was immediately put on AZT, and I went through the whole regimen that everybody who was diagnosed in those days went through. I guess my strain was maybe a little different than some of the others, but the medicines worked on me. And my gratitude is to all the wonderful physicians and researchers who have really kept me alive. I have a wonderful, caring doctor who has been with me through all of this—and when I realized he was keeping me going, I started to shed my fear of dying, and my plans to do nothing. Talking to you now, I feel twenty years younger. I'm just lucky. As Carol Channing says, 'Just lucky, I guess.''— Jerry Herman.
'As of July 2003, I shall be retiring from the music business in order to pursue a different career. ... I would request that as of July, since I seek no longer to be a 'famous' person, and instead I wish to live a 'normal' life, could people please afford me my privacy.' — Occasional lesbian Sinéad O'Connor, 36, writing at sinead-oconnor.com, April 26.
'Anybody who is a fan of mine does not wanna know a dumbass question like, is there any homo activities!' — Justin Timberlake, during a radio interview with Chicago DJ Java Joel (KISS 103.5-FM). Joel asked, 'You ever had any uh, gay experiences with the other guys from *N SYNC?' First, Justin said, 'Yo, switch the subject real fast, dude!' But Joel continued, saying that the question was 'fair,' noting that there was a lot of 'homoeroticism in *NSYNC's videos.'
'[My friends said coming out] would change my life. But I never thought when they were telling me—whether it was Ellen or Nathan or Harvey or any of my friends who are out—I never thought for a moment what it would change in my own life. I always thought it would be about the public perception, the adjective assigned to your name for eternity: 'lesbian Rosie O'Donnell, lesbian Rosie O'Donnell.' It's like 'Aries Rosie O'Donnell' or 'size-10-shoe Rosie O'Donnell.' What I didn't realize was that it would change everything about my life. And for the first time, I'm really, really, really happy.' — Rosie O'Donnell at the New York GLAAD Awards, as quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, April 15.
'I don't do anything political [on stage]. I never have, even though I'm considered a political person. ... People know I'm gay now, and that's it ... that's where it ends.' — Ellen DeGeneres to the Washington Times, April 16.
'Here's a news alert for Todd Jones, the homophobic Rockies reliever with the 4 blown saves in 4 tries, and the 6.61 ERA: There are gay players in major-league baseball today, just as there have been in the past and will be in the future. I knew of at least one gay player in Chicago baseball in the '90s, and that player suspected there were several others in town at the time. Of course, he also knew, as the others did, that 'coming out' would have made life as a big-leaguer impossible. Many years later, it doesn't sound as though much has changed, and that baseball is not ready for an openly gay player. Jones told the Denver Post recently that, 'I wouldn't want a gay guy being around me. ... All these people say he's got all these rights. Yeah, he's got rights or whatever, but he shouldn't walk around proud. It's like he's rubbing it in our face.' It's just difficult to believe that in 2003, 56 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, that we're even having this conversation. And if Jones is that intolerant of someone he hasn't been introduced to yet, how does the Georgia native handle different races, religions and Kentucky basketball fans?' — Barry Rozner in The Daily Herald, Arlington Heights, Ill., May 8.
'I have been sneered at, ridiculed, cold-shouldered. I think they see me as the visual representation of a show they feel gets it wrong and is not representative of their lives and unbelievable.' — Queer As Folk's Gale 'Brian' Harold, to Lynn Elber of the Associated Press about some gay people's reactions to his QAF role. Harold guested last Friday night on Law and Order: S.V.U.
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