It’s definitely died down a lot in recent years, but there was a time when you couldn’t move for speculation about which top actors in Hollywood were secretly gay. Of course, this was perfect fodder for supermarket tabloids, who could reliably shift magazines with unfounded gossip about who was in the closet and what they were doing with their private lives. Fortunately, LGBTQ relationships being pretty much normalized has meant that celebrities simply don’t feel as much pressure to hide their sexuality anymore and most readers aren’t scandalized by it. But as silly as those stories might be, they obviously still hurt those that are involved.
As you may know, Hugh Jackman has long been subject to them, presumably because he combines being a gritty, hairy action star muscle man beefcake as Wolverine while also dancing around singing songs in major musicals, like The Greatest Showman. The only problem is that Jackman has been married for 24 years to Deborra-Lee Furness, and she’s understandably not too happy about gutter journalists claiming her husband is gay.
In a recent interview, she opened about this and said the following:
“I see these magazines and they’re so mean-spirited… I hope people realize it’s all made up. [Hugh’s] been gay for so many years, I was gay too when I did [the 1988 film] Shame. They were shocked when I got married. It’s just wrong. It’s like someone saying to Elton John, ‘Oh he’s straight’. I’m sure he’d be pissed!”
Jackman has been asked about these stories in the past and often refuses to discuss them, though he did mention in a 2013 interview that the constant tabloid reports about his sexuality “bug” his wife.
And honestly, the whole thing is more than a little ridiculous. If Hugh Jackman actually was gay, nobody would even care and I’m guessing he’d be happily out of the closet. After all, it’s 2020 not 1955, and if you’re still shocked by a man having the hots for another man, then you really need to get with the times.
