LGBTQ news and entertainment
I’m a little late in sending big congrats to “Wicked” star Jonathan Bailey being named PEOPLE Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2025 – a huge deal! Continue reading “Jonathan Bailey Named PEOPLE’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’”
Chris Evans is the 2022 Sexiest Man Alive for PEOPLE Magazine (screen cap)
Ricky Martin (screen capture via People)
His next major acting gig, in 2018, was also a Ryan Murphy production, The Assassination of Gianni Versace. He scored an Emmy nomination for the role — and after the laudation was hoping for more prestige acting offers. He’s still waiting.
“I love acting,” he says. “I’m waiting for those scripts, for those great scripts. I can play gay, I can play straight, I can play a serial killer. I can play Latin, but I can also play European. I am ready. Just give it to me, man. Give it to me.”
A few years ago, Martin was told by a music label executive that he’d be selling more records if he’d never come out.
“That was something that really affected me. And I was like, ‘Am I really dealing with this? They’re not playing my music in this country because I’m gay? Is this really happening?’ We’re talking about four years ago. This executive doesn’t work for the record company anymore. He was fired. But I felt it. It hit me hard.”
“I don’t know if I’m not getting parts because I’m gay,” he admits. “But if that’s the case, it’s really sad. I’m going to keep working until life is different.”
Read more at PEOPLE.com. https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn_7rmNWYj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
International pop star Ricky Martin (screen capture via People)
Martin also tells PEOPLE that early in his career he felt pressure prove himself as “a sex symbol.” Before coming out, he was dating women (publicly) and men (privately) trying to decode his own confusion wondering “Am I gay? Am I bisexual? Am I confused?”
One thing he is not confused about is that he was not ‘misleading’ anyone.’
“Sexuality is one complicated thing,” Martin shares with the celebrity magazine. “It’s not black and white. It’s filled with colors. When I was dating women, I was in love with women. It felt right, it felt beautiful.”
At the time, though, the question of his sexuality seemed to hang in the air. Still, Martin intrinsically knew he would come to terms with those questions in his own time.
But there are still moments, before coming out, that haunt him.
Martin recalls a national TV interview with Barbara Walters in 2000 when she asked the question point-blank. “You could stop these rumors,” Walters prodded. “You could say, ‘Yes I am gay or no I’m not.'”
With an almost imperceptible touch of fear in his eyes, Martin found his center and replied, “Barbara, for some reason, I just don’t feel like it.”
Martin says the moment he heard the question, “I felt violated because I was just not ready to come out. I was very afraid.” He adds, “There’s a little PTSD with that.”
Martin eventually came out ten years later in 2010. Looking back now in 2021, with four kids and a husband, Martin says he has considered the question “what would you do differently?”
“Well, maybe I would have come out in that interview,” says the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” singer. “It would’ve been great because when I came out, it just felt amazing. When it comes to my sexuality, when it comes to who I am, I want to talk about what I’m made of, about everything that I am. Because if you hide it, it’s a life-or-death situation.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBgCq5rlS8_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
“There are many, many kids out there that don’t have someone to look up to,” Martin says. “All they have around them is people telling them, ‘What you’re feeling is evil.’ But, you can’t force someone to come out. But if you have an egg and you open it from the outside, only death comes out. But if the egg opens up from the inside, life comes out.”
For her part, Walters would later admit regret for urging Martin to come out and how the moment was perceived by the public.
“I pushed Ricky Martin very hard to admit if he was gay or not, and the way he refused to do it made everyone decide that he was,” Walters told the Toronto Star in 2010. “A lot of people say that destroyed his career, and when I think back on it now, I feel it was an inappropriate question.”
Read more of Jason Sheeler’s interview over at PEOPLE. Make sure to pick up this year’s Pride Issue on newsstands Friday.
People’s PRIDE ISSUE nationwide on Friday!!! Check it out! pic.twitter.com/8s2EOTFdxx
— Ricky Martin (@ricky_martin) June 2, 2021
You can listen to Martin’s interview with Jason Sheeler on this podcast episode of People Every Day:
Antoni Porowski of Queer Eye (image via Facebook)
And check out that brutal headline: “The Trump Family – Secrets & Lies – Donald Trump taught his children to fight dirty and win, no matter what the cost. How the ruthless family culture has shaped Don Jr., his siblings-and-the presidency.”
Poor Eric, the third favorite, doesn’t even make the cover.
You can read part of the article here.
People Magazine does great by pop icon Olivia Newton-John sharing her positive perspective as she faces down cancer again 25 years after her first bout.
While the article is filled with statements by her husband, John Easterling, and close friends like Didi Conn and Leeza Gibbons, the Aussie icon shares a message to her fans via the publication:
“I am really grateful for and touched by the worldwide outpouring of love and concern. Thank you.
“I am feeling good and enjoying total support from my family and friends, along with a team of wellness and medical practitioners both here in the US and at my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
“I’m totally confident that my new journey will have a positive success story to inspire others!”
You can listen to my interview with Olivia talking about her latest album, LIV ON, on iTunes.
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| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump |
PEOPLE reporter Natasha Stoynoff, who came forward last week with her own story about sexual assault by Donald Trump during an interview session, has gotten back-up from colleagues and friends who are putting their own names out there in support of her story.
Here’s just an excerpt of the PEOPLE story today:
Six colleagues and close friends who corroborate former PEOPLE writer Natasha Stoynoff’s account of being attacked by Donald Trump in 2005 are now coming forward. Among them is a friend who was with Stoynoff when she ran into Melania Trump later in N.Y.C.
The wife of the Republican nominee denies meeting Stoynoff after the attack, but Stoynoff’s friend Liza Herz remembers being there during the chance meeting.
“They chatted in a friendly way,” Herz, who met Stoynoff in college, says. “And what struck me most was that Melania was carrying a child and wearing heels.”
Marina Grasic, who has known Stoynoff for more than 25 years, says she got a call from her friend the day after the attack. Stoynoff detailed everything about the attack, from Trump pushing her against a wall to the business mogul showing up at her massage appointment the following day, she says.
According to Grasic, her longtime friend was embarrassed and even thought of Trump’s then-pregnant wife when deciding not to come forward about the encounter.
“Natasha was also struggling about not hurting pregnant Melania if the story came out,” Grasic says. “Beyond just the attack, she was horrified by the vulgar circumstances under which she was attacked and propositioned to have an affair. She was there in a professional capacity, writing an article about their happy marriage, and after the incident Trump acted like nothing happened.
Stoynoff’s former journalism professor, Paul McLaughlin, says that the writer called him in tears looking for advice the very night of the harrowing encounter. However, he cautioned her to remain quiet in fear of how Trump may retaliate.
“She wasn’t sure what she should do,” McLaughlin recalls. “I advised her not to say anything, because I believed Trump would deny it and try to destroy her.”
Testimonials from four more colleagues at the link.
As the Donald Trump campaign continues to do damage control by moving into “scorched earth” mode, a bombshell from People.com tonight.
A veteran reporter, Natasha Stoynoff, who covered Donald Trump for years has come forward with shocking allegations of a sexual assault committed on her in Trump’s Florida home back in December 2005.
Here’s just an excerpt of the article posted tonight on People:
Our photo team shot the Trumps on the lush grounds of their Florida estate, and I interviewed them about how happy their first year of marriage had been. When we took a break for the then very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion. There was one “tremendous” room in particular, he said, that I just had to see.
We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat.
Now, I’m a tall, strapping girl who grew up wrestling two giant brothers. I even once sparred with Mike Tyson. It takes a lot to push me. But Trump is much bigger—a looming figure—and he was fast, taking me by surprise, and throwing me off balance. I was stunned. And I was grateful when Trump’s longtime butler burst into the room a minute later, as I tried to unpin myself.
The butler informed us that Melania would be down momentarily, and it was time to resume the interview.
I was still in shock, and remained speechless as we both followed him to an outdoor patio overlooking the grounds. In those few minutes alone with Trump, my self-esteem crashed to zero. How could the actions of one man make me feel so utterly violated?
It’s important to note that even as Trump followers denounce the allegations from Stoynoff, the behavior Trump himself described (and captured by Access Hollywood microphones) is exactly what is chronicled here. This is exactly what he told Billy Bush he did to women.
I find it difficult to believe a veteran reporter for People of many years would be throwing away a career on baseless allegations.
For it’s 30th annual installment of the “Sexiest Man Alive” titles, People Magazine has named former soccer great David Beckham as the title holder for 2015.
“It’s a huge honor,” Beckham, 40, tells PEOPLE of scoring our 30th anniversary Sexiest Man crown. “And I’m very pleased to accept.”
“I never feel that I’m an attractive, sexy person,” he says in this week’s cover story. “I mean I like to wear nice clothes and nice suits and look and feel good, but I don’t ever think of myself that way.”
Still, when Beckham shared the news with his wife, fashion mogul Victoria Beckham, 41, she was totally on-board.
“I would hope that she feels this way about me all the time anyway!” he says with a shy smile. “But she said, ‘Congratulations!’ ”
“We kind of laughed about it with the boys and the boys kind of laughed at me and said, ‘Really?! Sexiest man alive? Really?’ ”
People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue goes on sale this Friday.