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Celebrities Coming Out in the Internet Age

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The experience of coming out as gay to fans can be very different depending on who those fans are.

Sam Tsui

Trey Pearson

 

Two celebrity musicians–a Christian rocker and a YouTube phenom–recently acknowledged their homosexuality publicly. The musicians create very different kinds of music that appeal to quite distinct audiences. Those differences, in addition to their radically different personal experiences, helped shape the contrasting ways they outed themselves. Whereas one had to come out to a deeply homophobic audience, the other had the luxury of being able to assume that his fan-base would be mostly supportive.

Christian rocker Trey Pearson came out last week via an interview with (614) Magazine, followed by a series of tweets and Facebook posts. His coming out story–“a sad narrative of struggle and shame and denial”–is reminiscent of an earlier era, though one that remains all too common among certain demographics even now.

Pearson, who is 35 years old, is the lead singer of the Christian rock band Everyday Sunday. His song “Wake Up! Wake Up!” was the most-played Christian rock song of 2007, and he has sold around 250,000 albums. He is not a household name nationally, but is well-known within the insular world of Christian rock.

Pearson is not the first Christian rock star to come out. As Jonathan Merritt, who interviewed Pearson soon after his announcement, pointed out in Religious News Service, Pearson is now “in the center of a growing movement of popular Christian musicians who are coming out as gay and are advocating for a more open and accepting posture in the church.”

However, Merritt observes, these pioneers have paid a heavy price for their openness: “Since Christian music fans tend to be conservative and believe that homosexual acts are sinful, you won’t hear these artists’ music played in most churches or on Christian radio these days.”

Pearson’s knowledge that the revelation of his homosexuality will likely end his career not only makes his decision to come out a brave one, and a measure of the misery he faced living in the closet, but it also no doubt shaped the terms of his coming out story.

For example, the letter he posted on Facebook, informing his fans of his homosexuality is less an affirmation of his sexuality than it is a confession that he has been unable to live according to the dictates of his religion. It is more apologetic than celebratory.

“I never wanted to be gay,” he tells his fans, and adds: “I was scared of what God would think and what all of these people I loved would think about me; so it was never was an option for me. I have been suppressing these attractions and feelings since adolescence. I’ve tried my whole life to be straight. I married a girl, and I even have two beautiful little kids.”

After struggling against his attractions toward men and desperately attempting to develop heterosexual feelings, Pearson finally reached the conclusion that he has irrevocably failed in his quest. “I am never going to be able to change how I am . . . [or] what I know deep down: that I am gay.”

Despite casting his acquiescence in the reality that he is gay as an epic failure, Pearson nevertheless acknowledges that his honesty–”his escape from the prison of the closet”–has brought him peace.

“I know I have a long way to go,” Pearson writes. “But if this honesty with myself about who I am, and who I was made by God to be, doesn’t constitute the peace that passes all understanding, then I don’t know what does. It is like this weight I have been carrying my whole life has been lifted from me, and I have never felt such freedom.”

He ends his letter with a plaintive appeal to his fans not to reject him. “I hope people will hear my heart, and that I will still be loved. I’m still the same guy, with the same heart, who wants to love God and love people with everything I have. This is a part of me I have come to be able to accept, and now it is a part of me that you know as well.”

Pearson subsequently appeared on ABC’s The View to explain his experience and his need to come out.

The other musician who recently came out is YouTube star Sam Tsui, who is most famous for his covers of popular music. On April 15, Tsui came out in a vlog posted on his YouTube channel, and used the occasion to announce his imminent wedding to fellow musician and collaborator Casey Breves, which occurred the following day.

Tsui, who is 27, came to prominence while an undergraduate at Yale, where he majored in ancient Greek. The videos he made with his friend from boyhood, Kurt Hugo Schneider, took YouTube by storm, some of them garnering more than 30,000,000 views each and well over 500,000,000 in total. The YouTube covers also launched Tsui on a live performance career, as well as creating an audience for his original singles and albums.

While Tsui’s sexuality had been the subject of some speculation, he had not come out publicly until the April 15 vlog despite an unusual level of engagement with his YouTube subscribers, who are known collectively as “The Samily.” In the vlog, he addresses the possibility that some of his fans might find his previous reticence about his personal life dishonest or evasive, claiming that he initially thought his relationships were not relevant to his music.

He pointedly denies that his reticence stemmed from any shame or ambivalence about his homosexuality or his relationship with Breves: “Given this is a coming out video of a sort, I want to say very clearly that waiting to tell you guys about this does not mean I am or was ashamed about anything. I am proud of who I am and very proud of my relationship with Casey, because he is amazing.”

He adds, “I never felt the need to do a big tear-y coming out video because honestly, in my daily life it’s such a non-issue.”

The vlog does betray anxiety that some members of the “samily” might be offended by the news that Tsui is gay, perhaps because a considerable number of his fans are teenage girls who may indulge romantic fantasies about him. But clearly Tsui does not have to worry about the kind of wholesale rejection by his fans that Pearson must fear.

Indeed, Tsui says, “I really do hope and trust that this new information or my sexuality doesn’t change your opinion of me or my music. I assume we are all 2016-enough to know that it shouldn’t.”

The wedding between Tsui and Breves, which was announced in the vlog, was also the subject of an extraordinary gay wedding video, featuring their song “This Promise,” which may be found here.

The contrast between the two coming out modes is apparent. One is tortured and dramatic, the other is confident and casual. Whereas Pearson feels the need to explain in great detail the painful struggle that led him to decide that he could no longer live in the closet, Tsui simply declares that he is about to marry his boyfriend, whom he has dated for some time. He feels no need to explain or justify his sexuality, though he is self-conscious about the fact that he has not previously revealed the information to his fans.

Tsui’s casual coming out is similar to that of other closeted celebrities who have come out by simply stating a fact about themselves. These are usually people who have long been out in their private lives, including among professional colleagues, but have not taken the final step of announcing their sexuality publicly.

Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, for example, came out on December 29, 2013 in a year-end Facebook message in which she casually included her longtime partner Amber Laign among those who helped her through a trying year during which she recovered from chemotherapy and a blood marrow transplant. In her first public acknowledgment of her ten-year relationship with Laign, Roberts expressed gratitude to all who supported her in her battle against MDS, the blood disorder that threatened her life.

Similarly, weatherman Sam Champion and longtime partner photographer Rubem Robierb outed themselves in a 2012 New York Times article by Jacob Bernstein about the wedding of MSNBC News anchor Thomas Roberts and Patrick Abner. Bernstein noted the presence of the two at the Roberts-Patrick reception. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, Champion told the reporter, “We’re getting married New Year’s Eve in Miami.” Robierb corrected him: “We’ll do it here officially, and then have a party in Miami.” Champion, who had been widely rumored to be gay and who frequently attended gay events in New York, seemed eager to seize an opportunity to come out publicly without having to make a “big tear-y coming out video.”

If Tsui’s coming out vlog partakes of the matter-of-factness of the announcements of Robin Roberts and Sam Champion, Pearson’s public coming out is reminiscent of an earlier era when homosexuality was widely stigmatized and most celebrities who came out were typically outed by others.

However, Pearson’s story does bear a resemblance to that of country singer Ty Herndon, who in November 2014, at the age of 52, confirmed long-standing rumors about his sexuality, telling Entertainment Tonight reporter Sophie Schillaci that “I have an awesome relationship that I’ve been in for a good number of years. [I] love him very much and he loves me.”

Ty Herndon

Herndon, who produced his biggest hits in the 1990s, including “What Mattered Most” (1995), “Living in a Moment” (1996), and “It Must Be Love” (1998), revealed that he had convinced himself that he could not be gay and have a career in country music. Hence, although he knew that he was gay when he was ten years old, and told close family members when he was 20, he went to great lengths to pass as straight so that he could be a country music singer.

Married to women twice before coming to terms with his sexuality, Herndon told ET, “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. They’ve been my mistakes, and I own them.” He added, “I’ve done a lot of work around forgiveness with people that I’ve hurt and people I’ve not been honest with because of my sexuality.”

He said that recent indications that country music has become more supportive of the lgbt community encouraged him. “Traditionally in country music, we don’t see a lot of support . . . , but that’s changing so much.” As evidence, he cited the fact that “Kacey Musgraves won [CMA] Song of the Year for ‘Follow Your Arrow, Wherever It Points,’ and two amazing songwriters that happened to be gay wrote that song.”

Pearson’s public coming out is also reminiscent of the 2014 coming out of Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, which also involved a long history of struggle and denial.

Ian Thorpe

Thorpe, one of the greatest swimmers in history, and an icon of Australian sport, came out in a highly touted interview on Australian television.  After years of adamantly denying rumors that he was gay, in the interview he discussed the pain he experienced in coming to terms with his sexuality while also battling depression.

He explained that he had been trapped by his evasion and deception. “What happened was I felt the lie had become so big that I didn’t want people to question my integrity. . . . I didn’t want people to question that . . . have I lied about everything?”

He added, “I’ve wanted to [come out] for some time. I didn’t feel I could. Part of me didn’t know if Australia wanted its champion to be gay.”

Thorpe’s questioning of whether Australia would accept a gay sports hero is equivalent to Pearson’s worry as to whether Christian rock fans can accept a gay Christian rocker.

Just as Pearson expresses hope that the revelation of his suffering in the closet might lead to a kinder and more accepting posture by Evangelical Christians, so Thorpe expressed the hope that his coming out might help others. Having reached a point where “I’m comfortable saying I’m a gay man,” Thorpe wants young people to realize “You can grow up, you can be comfortable and you can be gay.”

An outpouring of support for Thorpe indicated that Australia was ready to accept a gay sports hero. Whether there will be a similar flood of support from Evangelical Christians for Pearson is, alas, doubtful.

 

Images of Trey Pearson and Sam Tsui via Twitter

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News

‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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19 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

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Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

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Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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22 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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