Olivia Rumor Patrol

Listen, I know a lot of gay men are prone to believing "everyone" else is gay -- or at least gay until proven otherwise. For whatever reason, I'm actually not that way. In fact, even when the world was screaming that Ricky Martin was gay, and Michael was insisting that he "used to see him holding hands with his boyfriend in Chelsea," I still rolled my eyes and assumed it was a bunch of gossip. (Oops. Chalk that up to the third time Michael's been right in the last dozen years!) So when a Queerty reader wrote so matter-of-factly about Olivia Newton-John's being gay -- and was quite irate about it because she needs to "stop treating her fans like idiots" -- I started to think he probably knew what he was talking about. Then I got an email from a reader who had looked into the subject a little deeper and I quickly had my doubts once again. Hollywood image or no Hollywood image: It's hard to imagine anyone going through this much trouble and getting this many people to live lies just to concoct a story of heterosexuality. Bonus points to my reader for citing two articles by trusted friends of mine! 

Stephen writes:

Loving the blog as always, and looking forward to the arrival of the book in my mailbox.

Re: ONJ as bi/gay, I looked into this rumor quite thoroughly when I first bought Boze Hadleigh's "The Vinyl Closet: Gays in the Music World" in 1994. I temporarily believed the book and loved the idea of Olivia being lesbian or bisexual but have concluded the supposed interviews by Hadleigh are fake, and his reputation is dubious.

To be succinct I found that: Matt Lattanzi left Olivia for their daughter's nanny, Cindy Jessup, ten years his junior, in 1995, leading to his divorce from ONJ. He married Cindy and they divorced many years later after she left him -- one of Heidi Fleiss's hookers wrote a book and had a chapter titled "getting physical in Olivia's bed," as she took an acting class with Matt and had a fling with him in his marital home when Olivia was away. I really don't think Matt is gay. I recently read "Olivia: The Biography of Olivia Newton-John" by Tim Ewbank (2008), which is an interesting read and quite detailed about the relationships in Olivia's life, all of which were with men, starting with Ian Turpie in her teen years, and of course most recently, she married John Easterling. Before Easterling, her boyfriend Patrick McDermott famously disappeared during a 2005 fishing trip. -- Olivia was interviewed by the Advocate along with Del Shores in 2001 when they made "Sordid Lives" and she was questioned about the lesbian rumors, which she denied. I don't think she would take the lesbian role in "Sordid Lives" if she was closeted and paranoid -- also, your blog post has a short quote about her sexuality but the full interview can be found HERE, and I find it completely believable (in contrast, I think "Grease" co-star John Travolta is certainly gay or bisexual).

From HERE.

In 1990 or so, there was an outing campaign in NYC where posters stating "Absolutely Queer" or "Absolutely Het" were plastered around the city. The Tom Selleck ones created the most fuss, but you can see in the photo above, bottom row, the poster that featured ONJ and Travolta: Olivia was asked about this during a 1993 interview. She handles it rather nicely.

Have You Never Been With a Fellow?

"I'm so not. I'm so heterosexual...What am I doing to make people think this? Later I thought it was cool. But there's no truth to it." -- Oliiva Newton-John, in the Globa tabloid, March 11, 2013.

Queerty had a lovely interview with Olivia Newton-John over the weekend about the Aussie icon's upcoming residency at the Tropicana in Vegas, in which she voices her onging support for LGBT equality. (Read HERE.) Although I try to avoid reading comments -- especially the vicious ones typically seen on Queerty and Towleroad -- I happened to see this one and for some reason it really stuck in my craw.

ProfessorVP:

When I say that popular and influential gays and lesbians who claim to be supportive of gays and lesbians while at the same time refusing to come out themselves… when I say that they are not only not supportive of gays and lesbians, but what they do is actually proving a lack of support, there will inevitably be a reply by someone criticizing me. “How dare you call Olivia Newton-John a lesbian!” (like it’s so bad it’s libel) And the inevitable “How do you know?” Listen, it is very hard to keep a secret like that, many people already know, and like a lot of people with a secret, she sometimes is tempted to put her cards on the table. She did once, allowing herself to be interviewed for the book “The Vinyl Closet” several years ago, in the chapter “The Story of O.” Both she and her gay then-husband Matt Lattanzi were candid as to why they had to protect their careers. That was a few decades ago. It is now 2014, and women like Olivia and, to a far greater degree, Oprah Winfrey, are financially independent to say the least, and if they never earned another penny, they’d do okay, and could stop treating their fans like idiots. Like Winfrey, Olivia is far more than just coy about her sexuality, but downright deceptive, even going so far as keep marrying, and blaming the late Johnny Carson for spreading the rumor about her. What she and other successful gay men and lesbians do- being supportive of gay men and lesbians- is like Bullwinkle being supportive of moose. It is the same old fear and shame. Far into the 21st century, aside from being disingenuous, their attitude seems straight out of one of those tacky time capsules, containing things like Dewey Beats Truman. Enough already, time to move on.

I vividly recall where I was when I first heard the "Olivia's a lezzie" rumor. It was 1980 and my friend Greg and I were playing tennis at La Casita, one of the recreation centers inside Dobson Ranch, the Charles Keating-built masterplanned community my family lived in from 1979 to 1990. We were resting near the net -- those crosscourt forehand battles could really knock the wind out of you, especially in 100-degree heat -- when Greg shared the news with me. I think he'd gotten the tidbit from his totally cool big sister Francine, who smoked and got pregnant out of wedlock. (That's how cool she was!) I was still digesting the news that "Rod Stewart had to get his stomach pumped after swallowing too much cum,", so it hit me hard, especially since Olivia was "my girl." Although I was becoming aware of my own "alternative" sexual feelings, hearing it about the Australian golden girl made my stomach feel as if I'd swallowed one load too many loads. I can only imagine it was the same combination of disappointment and protectiveness that parents feel when their children come out, which is ultimately based on ignorance and homophobia. ("What will people think of her when they find this out? Her life is going to be so much harder." Just a typical 13-year-old boy concerned about the career of an international sex symbol!)

I'm not sure if Elton John was right or not that once the rumor spread, the truth was just a thing of the past. By all accounts, hunky ex-hubby Matt Lattanzi is gay -- and the Livvy is too rumor has never really dissipated and may very well be true. But I'm not entirely sure this commenter is right when he says that Oliiva and other gay celebrities who refuse to come out "are not only not supportive of gays and lesbians, but what they do is actually prov(id)ing a lack of support." Sure, it would be WAY BETTER for all gay people to come out. But like Anderson Cooper before her, Olivia's (and his) being pro gay and speaking out for marriage equality is definitely better than NOT being pro gay and speaking out in support of marriage equality. And I don't see how you can call this providing a "lack of support" for LGBTers.

Thoughts?

P.S. The irony that I am writing about this on the same day that the woman I dumped Olivia for "came out" as bisexual is not lost on me!

Does Andy Roddick Have a Boyfriend? -- Blind Item

I'm (still) not saying Andy Roddick is gay, but his name was the first to come up related to this blind item:

This A list model/B- list mostly movie actress has been in the news this week. She says that she has finally realized that her husband just doesn't like women and that he is loving his new job because he is around guys all the time and never wants to come home. She told someone on the set of her shoot that she thinks he found a boyfriend, but isn't sure.

Andy, of course, now works for the Fox Sports Network. 

Taylor Lautner Is Gay

Not that I really care, but apparently it's common knowledge. So in case you're like me and didn't even "know about" Ricky Martin -- you're welcome! I've never seen Taylor Lautner in anything, but I heard his fey voice in a movie trailer once and just figured he was from Michigan, which -- I should add -- would make a great euphemism for being gay. "Is he dating Ashley Benson?" "No, he's from Michigan." Read the sad details in THIS blind item.

UPDATE: I hadn't even seen this sassy hand gif that keep giving ...