Award-Winning Star Of ‘Cabaret’ Joel Grey Comes Out At 82

Joel Grey announces he’s gay at 82, shares what it was like growing up in a time when it was much harder to be open.

He’s won an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and the herts of countless millions for his iconic portrayal as the the Master of Ceremonies in “Cabaret,” on stage and on screen. But at 82, actor Joel Grey had never publicly said he is gay, until now.

In an exclusive with PEOPLE magazine, Grey says, “I don’t like labels, but if you have to put a label on it, I’m a gay man.” 

“All the people close to me have known for years who I am,” Grey tells PEOPLE. “[Yet] it took time to embrace that other part of who I always was.” 

He tells PEOPLE how difficult it was to be gay when he was growing up.

It was different for a man of his generation. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of noted actor-comedian Mickey Katz, Grey remembers “hearing the grownups talk in the next room, my mother included, talking derisively about ‘fairies’ and men being dragged off to jail and even worse for being who they were.”

Grey is also the father of actress Jennifer Grey, best-known for her roles in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Dirty Dancing.”

“I feel very happy for my dad that he has come to a point in his life where he feels safe and comfortable enough to declare himself in a public way as a gay man,” Jennifer tells PEOPLE. “Mostly because the more people are free to own their true nature and can hopefully come closer to love and accept themselves as they really are, no matter what age, no matter how long it takes, to finally be free of the lies or half truths, it is freedom.”

Some responses via Twitter:

 

 

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