PHOTOSHappy Pride Month! 19 Celebrities Who Have Come Out As Gay Or Bisexual
June 4 2022, Published 12:05 a.m. ET
Although the current political climate has hampered some of the progressive strides, the LGBTQ+ community continues to speak up more than ever, and people are sharing their personal coming-out stories, including those Hollywood celebrities in the public eye.
In the past few years, stars have opened up about their sexual orientation, be it gay or bisexual, including actors Kristen Stewart, Colton Haynes, and singers like Frank Ocean and Joshua Bassett.
Other celebrities are also using their social media to share their stories, like Bella Thorne, Bachelor's Colton Underwood and more. All these famous faces are helping the global effort to spread LGBTQ+ acceptance and positivity and seeing how these stories impact their followers is very empowering.
Here are 20 celebrities who shared their stories about coming out as gay or bisexual and are inspiring others to do the same.
The Selling Sunset star confirmed in May she is dating singer G Flip. During the Netflix hit's Season 5 reunion, the reality star told her costars and host Tan France, "I recently have been spending a lot of time with someone that’s very important to me. Their name is G Flip. They’re nonbinary, so they go by they/them. And they are an extremely talented musician."
Stause was last linked to her ex and boss Jason Oppenheim, whose relationship and breakup was a major storyline in the show's latest season. The former flames and cast members went their separate ways in December 2021.
The Bachelor alum came out as gay in April 2021. During a personal chat with GMA’s Robin Roberts, he declared he feels "proud" of his sexuality after a difficulty journey coming to terms with it. Revealing he had "suicidal thoughts" due to the internal conflict, Underwood confessed he never had an "emotional connection with a man" because he never allowed himself to.
But now, Underwood is happily in love with Jordan C. Brown, and the two are even engaged! After first linking up in the summer of 2021, months after he came out as gay, Underwood and Brown's engagement was confirmed in February.
"Starting 2022 off with my best friend, teammate and now fiancé is something I never thought was going to be possible," the reality star gushed in a statement of the proposal.
3. JOJO SIWA
The dancer and singer came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community back in January 2021, later clarifying that she identifies as queer and pansexual. The Dancing with the Stars performer revealed in February 2021 that she was dating Kylie Prew before going their separate ways last November.
However, Siwa confirmed six months later that the pair reconciled, taking to Instagram in May to share an adorable snap of the two with the caption: "If you love something let it go, if it comes back….🤍♾."
Though the Game of Thrones star never confirmed her sexuality, she seemed to hint she was bisexual last year while celebrating Pride Month. "It’s mothaf****n #pride month babaaaayyyyyy," she posted on her Instagram Story in June 2021 with stickers that read "Bi Pride," "Gay Pride," "Move, I’m gay" and "Time isn’t straight and neither am I."
This wasn't the first time Turner, who is married to Joe Jonas, dropped a hint about her sexuality. While reflecting on her love life in 2019 after Jonas proposed to her, the actress noted, "I was fully preparing myself to be single for the rest of my life. I think once you’ve found the right person, you just know... I’ve met enough guys to know — I’ve met enough girls to know."
"Everyone experiments. It’s part of growing up," she continued. "I love a soul, not a gender."
5. JOSHUA BASSETT
The Disney breakout star set the internet ablaze last summer when he hinted at having a crush on Harry Styles, leaving many to wonder about his sexuality and Bassett ultimately addressing the speculation with a powerful message. "My entire life people have told me my sexuality," he shared in an Instagram post in May 2021. "People have shamed me for things they know nothing about. I want to say thank you to those of you who stand for love and acceptance. Toxicity, hatred and negativity say less about the subject but say far more about those who spew it."
Shortly after, Bassett confirmed he is indeed part of the LGBTQ+ community but emphasized he was still figuring out how to properly articulate his sexuality.
While talking to GQ in a June 2021 interview, the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star shared his hope for the future of his millions of young fans, saying he wants them to grow up in a world where they won’t feel the need to “come out” in the same way he did, as it will be fully accepted. “I am anti-coming out in the sense that there’s no need to,” Bassett concluded, adding that “people are welcome to have boxes if they want them.”
The big cat lover shocked the world in October 2020 when she came out as bisexual, revealing in an interview at the time: "Even though I’ve never had a wife, I could just as easily have a wife as a husband." The Tiger King breakout star explained she realized her sexuality in the '80s when she was engaged to a man who was a "psychologist, and that was his entire field, dealing with the LGBT+ community."
"But it was during the ’80s that I discovered that through dealing with the LGBT+ community that I realized I had just as equal feelings for women as I did for men," she continued.
Baskin has been married to Howard Baskin for almost two decades now and was previously married to Don Lewis, who vanished in August 1997 and was later declared dead.
7. BELLA THORNE
The Famous in Love star first confirmed that she is bisexual on Twitter in August 2016, after photos of her kissing another girl popped up on Thorne's social media. When a fan asked her if she was bisexual, she wrote, “Yes.” Her followers quickly expressed their support. “Aww thank you all for the accepting tweets from everyone,” she wrote. “I love you guys.”
Since then, Thorne had a has few more interactions with her fans on Twitter. One asked how they should come out to their family, and the actress responded, “Honesty and bluntness. You can’t hide who you are forever and be happy. be strong boo.”
8. KRISTEN STEWART
The talented Kristen Stewart never shied away from showing PDA with the one she loves – from her former boyfriend, Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, to girlfriend Stella Maxwell – but the actress finally declared something about her sexual orientation when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 2017, saying she was “like, so gay.”
But she's still open for anything, once telling The Guardian, “The whole issue of sexuality is so grey. I’m just trying to acknowledge that fluidity, that greyness, which has always existed... You’re not confused if you’re bisexual. It’s not confusing at all. For me, it’s quite the opposite.”
9. MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ
Fast & Furious star Michelle Rodriguez has been candid about being bisexual since 2015, having been linked to a few Hollywood celebs, including Zac Efron and Cara Delevingne. Rodriguez spoke publicly about her love life when she told Entertainment Weekly, “I’ve gone both ways. I do as I please. I am too f***ing curious to sit here and not try when I can. Men are intriguing. So are chicks.”
The actress also hopes she can help others who might be struggling with their sexuality. She once told Gay Star News, “Maybe by me opening my big fat mouth like I usually do and stepping up and owning who I am, maybe it might inspire somebody else to do the same.” (via Huffington Post).
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10. BRANDON FLYNN
The handsome Flynn, best known as teen jock Justin in the hit Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, shared his thoughts on being gay in an Instagram post last September.
Standing up for marriage equality in Australia, Flynn, who has been romantically linked to singer-songwriter Sam Smith, wrote on his post, “We’ve been scared sh**less our whole lives, thanks to all the stigmas that surround us. Equality takes courage, it worries me that too many people in this world lack the balls to stand up for what is right.”
11. ALIA SHAWKAT
The Arrested Development and Search Party actress has played many quirky, headstrong characters in her career. Shawkat told Out last year, “I was a tomboy growing up, and I remember my mom asking me when I was 10, ‘Are you attracted to boys or girls?’ I said ‘I don’t know' Now I consider myself bisexual, and I think balancing my male and female energies has been a big part of me growing as an actor.”
Alia further explained, “As a woman, an Arab-American, and a member of the LGBTQ community, I have to use whatever voice I have. There’s no more delicacy in being quiet.”
12. AARON CARTER
The former teen heartthrob and signer, who just released LøVë, his first album in 15 years, posted a very emotional tweet last August, explaining how he “started to find boys and girls attractive” as a teen, and had “an experience with a male” who he “worked with and grew up with.” More importantly, Carter wrote how “a weight and a burden” had been lifted in being able to share this with his fans.
Carter opened up to People earlier this year, “I was really open and honest about my attraction to men and women, and I got a lot of support from it. Whether people believe it or not, I could not care less. It’s my personal life, not yours. It belongs to me.”
13. COLTON HAYNES
Although he had been openly gay with his family and friends, Arrow and Teen Wolf actor Colton Haynes came out publicly in 2016 after speculation arose in a cryptic Tumblr post about his “secret gay past.” Haynes told EW at the time, “I didn’t feel like I owed anyone anything. I think in due time, everyone has to make those decisions when they’re ready, and I wasn’t yet. But I felt like I was letting people down by not coming forward with the rest of what I should have said.”
Haynes has been very candid about how as an actor in Hollywood, he was told he had to play straight. “I was so tired of not being myself, of having to lower my voice for certain things and having to not dress the way I wanted to dress,” he told Andy Cohen on his Sirius XM show last June. “It was life-changing when I came out.”
14. WENTWORTH MILLER
The Prison Break star came out in 2013 in a letter to the St. Petersburg International Film Festival, thanking them for the invite by informing them he couldn't attend because “As a gay man I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government.”
While he had been open about his sexuality with friends and family, much like Colton Haynes, he felt like there was an onscreen persona to maintain. "The people onscreen aren't the characters they're playing," the hunky star told Details (via E!). "They're our projection of who we want them to be. I think it's possible to have a man-crush if you're not gay or to have a crush on a guy you know to be gay if you're a woman. Attraction is fluid, and I think our imaginations are strong enough to hold a container for all of this complexity, even if we know on a subconscious level something's not what it appears to be."
15. FRANK OCEAN
The R&B artist came out as bisexual in an open letter on Tumblr in 2012, right around the time his chart-topping album Channel Orange was released. Ocean told a story about loving a male friend when he was younger. "Whoever you are, whatever you are ... I'm starting to think we're a lot alike,” he wrote in the letter and detailed how the friend reciprocated on some level but ultimately rejected Ocean's desire to name their love.
While Ocean never really talked more about his candid Tumblr post, the singer did speak up again after the horrific shooting in 2016 at Orlando's Pulse nightclub. He wrote in another emotional post, “Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist,” adding, “Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest?
16. MATT BOMER
The handsome American Horror Story and The Last Tycoon star publicly came out in 2012, thanking his husband, Simon Halls, and their children at the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards while receiving the New Generation Arts and Activism Award for his activism in the fight against HIV/AIDS. “I’d really especially like to thank my beautiful family: Simon, Kit, Walker, Henry. Thank you for teaching me what unconditional love is. You will always be my proudest accomplishment.”
The hardest part of his journey was coming out to his deeply religious family as a young man. He opened up to Out magazine in 2017 about it. “Telling your family is a huge, huge deal. I really view my life as divided between the time before I told my parents, and the time after. And the decisions I made, and the life I lived, before and after, are vastly different. It’s night and day.”
17. SARAH PAULSON
The Emmy-winning actress of American Horror Story and The People vs. O.J. Simpson talked about her sexual orientation with the New York Times in 2016. “If my life choices had to be predicated based on what was expected of me from a community on either side, that’s going to make me feel really straitjacketed, and I don’t want to feel that. What I can say absolutely is that I am in love, and that person happens to be Holland Taylor.” Paulson and the former Two and a Half Men star have been together for two years.
Paulson has never felt the need to come out, per se. She once told The Edit, “I am a woman of a certain age who chose not to have children, and who has made my career my priority. I am the captain of my own ship, and I’ve never looked to anyone else to validate that, or tell me it’s okay."
18. ANDERSON COOPER
The CNN journalist finally made it public he was gay in 2012 when he wrote an email to Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan (via Huffington Post). “The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud,” he wrote.
Cooper went on to say that in not speaking up he was probably doing more harm than good. “It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something, something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true. I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.”
19. SARA RAMIREZ
The former Grey’s Anatomy star, who played bisexual doctor Callie on the show for years, came out in 2016 while supporting True Colors: 40 to None Summit in Los Angeles, an event named after the 40 percent of youth experiencing homelessness who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Here's what she said about how she felt and why owning all of her “identities” was so important: “Because of the intersections that exist in my own life: Woman, multi-racial woman, woman of color, queer, bisexual, Mexican-Irish American, immigrant, and raised by families heavily rooted in Catholicism on both my Mexican and Irish sides, I am deeply invested in projects that allow our youth's voices to be heard, and that support our youth in owning their own complex narratives so that we can show up for them in the ways they need us to."
