Amber Heard Comes Out of the Closet - Page 3

Nor were they hurting for work before they came out.

It's hard to point at someone and say their career is better BECAUSE they came out. Takei is the closest thing we can point to but really he stopped doing work because of the gossip mongering when he was in the spotlight and how it hurt his family. The rise of his career was just as likely related to him taking projects then his public coming out.

And NPH's increased popularity wasn't so much him coming out either as it was everyone realizing that the guy we all largely dismissed for a while was actually funny as hell.

I don't think comedic timing is saving NPH. Let's see how his career does when HIMYM is cancelled.

And Harris was basically out in the theater scene by the time he started getting the Harold and Kumar and How I Met Your Mother gigs. I remember hearing it as early as 2002, and he dated Sondheim for a while. It wasn't until he exploded via Barney and H&K that he was out "nationally." I'm not too concerned for him post HIMYM, honestly -- the dude is multi-talented, charismic as hell, and will always be able to find work doing theater in NY or LA. He's always said that he'd love to host a game or variety show as well. I can see that.

What will really be something to see is if Hathaway eventually comes out.

I saw NPH as the MC in "Cabaret". Dude's got chops and charisma. Like Rath said I think post-HIMYM he'll be on Broadway at the very least.

Not sure how 'in the closet' NPH ever was. The fact he was gay was common knowledge wherever he went, it seems. I knew he was gay a year before the press caught on because he was in my town hanging out with his boyfriend who was doing our theater festival. I think people are right when they say his career took off because of H+K and his innate talents which were brought to the public's attention rather than some sudden realization about his sexuality

I always thought the Hathaway rumor was debunked. Did I miss further evidence? On video, ideally?

I'd kind of like Travolta to come out. It's no one's business, sure, but at this point in his career I don't think it'll have a terribly adverse effect, no more adverse than Battlefield Earth, From Paris With Love, Old Dogs, and whatever else.

He's like the remnants of a sex symbol, the fumes really, nothing much to lose except membership in the Church of Scientology I guess.

This is the point I'm trying to make too. Whether or not someone gets blown up into super stardom as a result of coming out they still get a massive publicity boost for awhile and get some buzz around their name.

I mentioned it before but it's worth saying again, I had NO idea who the hell Lance Bass was before he came out. (And it is Nsync he was in? Whatever.)

I had never heard of Amber Heard before this thread about her coming out either, so clearly it's effective for getting peoples names out there. I'm not suggesting Heard came out just for the publicity but I'm sure it doesn't hurt.

Speaking for myself, coming out is supposed to be an empowering event both for the person coming out and for those still in the closet. Calling it a publicity stunt cheapens what is often a painful decision whose impact isn't known right away.

I'm certainly not trying to cheapen what an important thing it is, I mentioned earlier in this thread that coming out can be really painful and cathartic when it's about showing who you really are to the people closest to you.

But I think for celebrities there is a difference between their public life and private life and virtually EVERYTHING they do is scrutinized by the press. I would think coming out to your closest friends and family and coming out to the press would be two totally different things emotionally speaking. Also, in my last post I said I don't even think this is necessarily a publicity stunt at all, just that it HAS given her publicity and more name recognition as a result. I know her name now when before she was just the generic blond girl in Pineapple Express.

Agreed, but there's also gotta be a bit of damage control inherent to the process, especially with gossip blogs and paparazzi. Sucks!

You're right. Coming out to the press is different. Potentially more terrifying. Now the whole world knows that you are gay. Nutjobs can hound, threaten, harm you and your family and known friends. Not to mention that while a few actors/actresses have weathered the storm well career-wise, it's hardly the norm.

Can you give some examples? I just can't think of a time in the recent past where an actor has gotten threats or been harassed because they were gay. It's possible I've just never come across it but if having a successful career after coming out ISN'T the norm then it's strange those are the only cases I can think of.

I mean, I remember all the hoopla about Ellen coming out when I was a kid, did she get a lot of flack? I seem to remember her show was canceled shortly after but was that because she was gay? I was too young at the time to get all the details. She has a successful talk show now and is married to one of the hottest women in the world so surely it didn't affect her too badly.

Ellen was persona non grata in Hollywood for a long time after that announcement. I remember that clearly. And the show was ABSOLUTELY cancelled because she was gay. After she came out, her ratings plummeted and she was pretty much shunned. Being a sheltered little Catholic kid, I honest-to-God did not even know about homosexuality until the hoopla with Ellen. It just wasn't something that came up in conversation until she was all over the news.

Damn, that's brutal. That's certainly one example, I'm glad things turned around so well for her in the end.

This conversation has really peaked my interest now, I'd never thought about the effect coming out would have on celebrities careers so in depth before.

It's interesting to me that Ellen came out in 1997 and got so much heat for it but I just looked up Elton John on Wikipedia and he came out decades before Ellen ever did and remains some form of celebrity royalty to this day. Did he get a lot of heat for being gay too that just isn't mentioned on Wiki? And if not why? And what about David Bowie and other glam rock figures from the 70's who were using bisexuality as a way to create controversy and stir people up, did that help Bowie's career or hurt it? He's still pretty influential these days too.

It's confusing! Why would people have such a stick up their butts about Ellen being gay in the mid-nineties after other stars had already come out and blazed that trail so long before? Maybe I'm just a product of the times I'm living in, but I don't get why one star would be shunned while others were publicly out and performing at the time. Wasn't Elton John still fairly well liked by the public in 1997? According to Wiki he played a song at Princess Di's funeral that year and did songs for the Lion King in 1994 and had some albums out that were doing pretty well, so what the hell?

Elton and Bowie and other sexually fluid stars weren't in people's houses once a week. There's a different relationship between an audience and TV/film stars than there is with musicians. Don't be silly.

No, Elton John was just in the Lion King singing to peoples CHILDREN!

Not to mention Nathan Lane. DISNEY'S TRYIN TO TURN OUR KIDS GAY.

With Elton John, and this is just my speculation, but he was always so flashy and flamboyant that people pretty much knew and didn't care. It was an open secret. Elton John's situation is completely different from say, Rock Hudson, who was a major symbol of masculinity in his time. Elton was never that, and he also didn't go on TV to announce it in front of the world, so people focused on his music. Guys who are seem as feminine prior to coming out are met with a shrug, so glam rockers like Elton don't catch shit for their sexuality. If Elton was a "man's man" and then came out, I believe it would have hurt him.

With Ellen, people were operating on a basis of misunderstanding, ignorance, and blatant fear. They felt she was "rubbing it in their face" that she was gay. They felt that they had been "duped" in some way. They felt that her show now had a "gay agenda" because it foucsed a lot on gay issues in the wake of her coming out. Conservative religious groups mobilized in FORCE to protest, to the point that they succeeded in making ABC slap parental advisory messages at the beginning of episodes.

This was such a huge deal that year that I remember the principal of my Catholic school, a nun, coming into my seventh-grade classroom to talk to us about it. This was also the year that we were getting sex-ed, and Ellen's announcement was the first that a lot of us had even encountered homosexuality. There was nothing about it in those green sex-ed books, so we were confused as fuck. This nun seriously asked us to "pray for that demonic woman's soul". I wish I was joking. I knew it was serious then, because that nun would never talk to us about the goings-on in pop culture.

So... Short answer, people are idiots. I think you're right about Elton John, that does make some form of sense from their perspective.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised since we still have hysterical dumbasses claiming Spongebog or Teletubbies will make their kids gay, or that Harry Potter encourages satanism. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

To which I'd counter to said dipshits, we watched Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life and blatantly more subjective kids' shows, and we turned out alright.

Her show was cancelled because it became increasingly terrible. It was already close to cancellation even before she came out. That "coming out" episode got huge ratings and actually boosted the show. But then every episode that followed was basically the same thing "yup, I'm still gay" and she never actually did anything to further the show along. That's why it was cancelled.

Yeah, let's not ascribe too much to Ellen's cancellation other than deeply shitty ratings. Her follow-up to Ellen prior to her talk show was much better.

Disclaimer: haven't particularly paid attention to Cleo before, so I'm unsure which specific kittens she has murdered recently. But telling ANYBODY "choosing to speak out on behalf" of [insert discriminated group] isn't a great role for [any reason short of being a serial killer] blows my fucking mind. And using the kind of stereotypes usually thrown at bisexuals by both straight and gay communities, regardless of whether some of them partially or accurately describe her, is just

And for the record, if coming out actually helped your career, there wouldn't be a thread such as this one, nor any debate whatsoever, since the number of actors officially out would be, you know, totally representative of the number of gay people actually out there. I mean:

It's not like a well-known magazine published that this very year.

Seriously. Granted I'm not in the entertainment industry but I was fired from a job once it was learned that I was gay. Yeah, we're far, far, far away from coming out being a great way to boost your career.

Bomer has given interviews talking about being gay. I don't think he brings it up much, but he's out. Quinto is a glass closet/open secret guy, where he hasn't made an annoucement but is out in public/his life. See also: Cooper, Anderson.

Agreed. Loved the Ellen show early on but they had nothing after the coming out episode. Was painful to watch.

And while coming out may not be a career boost, it is an attention getter. Probably not as much as Heard would have like but it got her name out there. It's not like she had a big career befor the self outing.

I think the blase attitude by the media is a step in the right direction. It wasn't a big deal. Still the test case will be the leading man coming out. that will be a big deal.

With Heche, didn't the fallout come from when she almost immediately "stopped" being a lesbian when public interest in Ellen's announcement died out and then she revealed herself to be a batshit insane person with drug problems? I think the combo of the stigma associated with mental disease and the perception that she would literally do anything to advance her career did more damage to her than being "out" did.

Isn't that the entire point of the Heather Graham character in Bowfinger? They're making fun of Anne Heche's careerism?

Not surprised about Paquin or Heard. They have thin upper lips. Just like Jodie Foster. Whose new movie is called THE BEAVER. See?

McKellan has pretty much always been out. Besides it's not like the man has ever been lacking for work.