Happy Presidents Day!
We couldn’t think of a better way to honor all 44 of our nation’s top leaders than by digging up some of their old gay sex scandals.
To date, voters in the United States have never elected an openly gay president. But if, statistically speaking, 1 in 10 people is gay, then that means there’s been at least three, possibly four, same-sex loving U.S. presidents.
So who were they? Let’s put on our detective caps and do some sleuthing…
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Barrack Obama
Who can forget the story about Obama’s clandestine gay life cooked up by conservatives back in 2012? Rumor had it, before he was elected to the oval office, Obama used to hang out at gay bars and bathhouses in Chicago on the DL. More specifically, he would frequent them on Wednesdays, according to blogger Kevin DuJan, and he had a particular fondness for “older white guys.” This was all in addition to an alleged marriage to an anonymous Pakistani man and an affair with his personal assistant, Reggie Love.
Abe Lincoln
Tongues started wagging about the 16th President of the United States sexuality in the late twentieth century. To date, Honest Abe has been romantically linked to two different men: Joshua Fry Speed, who he lived with (and shared a bed with) for four years in Springfield, Illinois, and Captain David Derickson, who served as Lincoln’s bodyguard and bedmate (when Mary Todd wasn’t around) from September 1862 and April 1863. Whether or not Lincoln actually engaged in any tawdry behavior with these fellas is doubtful, but that hasn’t stopped gossipy historians from creating an entire Wikipedia page dedicated solely to the subject of the Great Emancipator’s bedroom shenanigans.
In his 2011 biography Nixon’s Darkest Secrets, veteran Washington reporter Don Fulsom claims that America’s most notorious president, Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, was more than just a liar and a crook. He was also a closeted homosexual. Fulsom alleges that Nixon carried on a decades-long affair with Mafia-connected Floridian Charles “Bebe” Rebozo, one of the 37th U.S. President’s closest allies. Rebozo often vacationed with the President in Key Biscayne, sometimes with Dick’s wife Pat, sometimes not. During their men-only visits, the twosome reportedly frolicked together in and out of the water, gushing over their shared passion for Broadway musicals.
Okay, technically he was never President, but he still sorta falls into that category. He was a founding father, after all, and he likely would have been elected eventually had he not been killed prematurely in a duel by Vice President Andrew Burr in 1804.
Though he married Elizabeth Schuyler and fathered a total of eight children, some historians believe Hamilton carried on a romantic relationship with fellow solider John Laurens while both men were aide-de-camps to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. The evidence is found in a series letters written by Hamilton to Lauren in 1779, in which he says mushy things like “I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words to convince you that I love you” and “You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent… Like a jealous lover, when I thought you slighted my caresses, my affection was alarmed and my vanity piqued.”
James Buchanan
The general consensus among historians is that James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States, was, indeed, a big fat ‘mo. He was never married (though he did briefly court a woman before she inexplicably broke it off, then died), nor did he ever express much interest in members of the opposite sex.
But that doesn’t mean the guy wasn’t without love.
Buchanan has been romantically linked to his close “friend” William Rufus King, who he shared a home with in Washington from 1834 until 1844, when King moved to France. The two “roommates” often attended social functions together, with King describing their comradery as a “communion.” Andrew Jackson was rumored to have called the dynamic duo “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy.”
After King departed for France in 1844, Buchanan scribed a letter to Cornelia Roosevelt, in which he professed: “I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them.”
Poor guy.
benandy
Alexander Hamilton was not eligible to be POTUS. He was born in Charlestown, Nevis in the West Indies and thus, not a “native born American”. Not that he wasn’t all smart and handsome enough to be elected, but getting the Constitution changed wasn’t particularly easy even then. He wouldn’t have been eligible until 1790 or 1792 [35 years of age minimum, his birth year is still somewhat in doubt]. 1792 was an election year and George Washington, who was adored by and adored Hamilton was running for his 2nd term. The next President was wanted to be “Northern” and since Adams had come in 2nd twice, he was the logical choice. Adams kept out of was with Napoleon against all odds and it both turned the country against the Federalists and also divided that party, with Hamilton leading the other faction. Jefferson, Adam’s VP, naturally took the Presidency, making Adams the 1st one term President in the 1st Presidential election which had two parties competing openly. That was the election of 1800. Since Hamilton lived in NY, it is “possible”, could the Constititution be changed, that he could have run in 1796 and defeated Adams and the US would probably have been invaded by France. Failing that, Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s VP in his first term, shot Hamilton in a duel and Hamilton died on July 12th 1804 at the age of 49 or 47, so he couldn’t have run in the 1804 election either way. Since Burr was upset over Hamilton’s remarks about his character when Burr was running for NY Governor [and he then LOST] and Hamilton was NEVER a man to keep his opinions to himself, that would have probably happened even if Hamilton had been running for President in 1804, stupid as it may seem.
I am Gay (just like you), Black, HIV-Positive, and Back Bitches!!!
So, I am commenting on the Most Boring Article ever posted to Queerty! It’s an honor!
Ladbrook
If you’re going to include all the crazy rumors about BHO (complete with that ridiculous picture) then you should also include GWB. Fair is fair.
Large Marge
@benandy:
Alexander Hamilton was most assuredly eligible to become president regardless of not being native born, just like George Washington was not native born.
Article Two, Section 1 of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
What that means essentially is that native-born was not a requirement at the time the constitution was written as citizen of the US were ‘grandfathered’ in.
sixtas
what about Frank Underwood?
Large Marge
@sixtas:
I lurve me some frankie in my pankie! I’d totally bone him.. cuz he is the president! (oops, spoiler alert for you latecomers… but seriously screw you… if you exist on the earth 10 minutes after the show ends, you should know not to go on the interwebs. People will be talking and posting about it.
…and then the special thing happens.. you get angry because somebody ‘spoiled’ it for you… well, let me tell you exactly who spoiled it for you.. YOURSELF.. you went on social media… wtf did you expect to happen?
People are not gonna stop talking about it just because you haven’t seen it yet. And that goes for you west-coasters too!
Nobody cares. It’s your damn responsibility to avoid social media spoilers… it’s not our responsibility to not post them.
In conclusion, in the bible, jesus dies.
onthemark
“Barrack” Obama? Did you get that from a right-wing site where they misspell everything?
@benandy: Some historians say the Constitution was written that way specifically to keep Hamilton from becoming president. Seems extreme, but he was really hated by some.
@sixtas: “what about Frank Underwood?” – LOLOLOL!
demented
I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama was gay or gay-leaning bi. He’s a Democrat and he hasn’t yet been involved in a sex scandal with a woman, even tho his wife looks like a horse and has a personality just as pretty. Politicians have affairs, and an affair with a woman would have leaked out earlier and been less damaging AFA the Beltway is concerned.
I think Buchanan may have preferred men, but letters concerning his female fiancee indicate that her reasons for breaking it off were not the ones hinted above (ie, not because he was either gay or bi) and he was genuinely upset when she died. If it was just for show, he’d have gone after some other woman for a cover, but he only attached himself to men after that.
Kieran
How could the guy sitting in the Lincoln Memorial and one of the most revered presidents in American history have been gay or bi? It’s utter blasphemy to even suggest such a thing. So Abe liked to sleep in the same bed with younger males? That doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t a normal, red-blooded American heterosexual man. How dare anyone besmirch one of our most iconic figures with such scurrilous innuendo.
And lay off our revered, saintly Eleanor Roosevelt too. Just because she had a separate and hidden cottage built on the Hyde Park estate in which she could spend private times with her many close girlfriends doesn’t mean she was actually a lesbian or bi.
TampaBayTed
@benandy: Thanks for an articulate and informative comment.
MacAdvisor
@benandy: Hamilton was eligible to be President. A sizable portion of the American population, at the time the Constitution was adopted, were not native born, mostly because there wasn’t a country to be born into. The full text of the Constitution on this question reads, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Hamilton was a citizen of the US at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and, thus, eligible to be President.
darian
It’s gonna be one of those articles I can feel it.
Giancarlo85
@MacAdvisor: I think the reason why Hamilton did not become President was rather he had many people against him. Including a certain Vice President he got into a duel with which cost him his life. He had too many against him. So the reason he did not become President was political, rather then where he was born.
Demented, I don’t see any logic for Obama being gay or bi. Sorry. And his wife looks fine to me.
Blackceo
Oh ungh ungh….why y’all got my President looking like a lost YMCA band member?? And spell his f*n name right!!! Y’all some messy gringos.
jckfmsincty
This is so disrespectful to the current President who has done so much for the LGBT community.
Matt1961
Am I the only one that remembers history through the “Got Milk” commercials of the 80’s, when a radio DJ announced a huge prize for the right answer to the question “Who Shot Alexander Hamilton…” and the poor sap that had a mouth full of peanut butter and NO MILK tried in vain to answer “AARON BURR”… All that to say this, the Vice President of the United States that shot Alexander Hamilton was not “Andrew Burr” but Aaron Burr.
Bob LaBlah
The cute one, Obama, is the only one I can say, from the bottom of my heart, “leave him the fuck alone”. As you can see, I like the guy and would not be shocked to learn he has an attraction to men. I saw the same thing most gay men saw when photos of Obama’s high school days were published. I saw a kid who couldn’t wait to play grab ass in the shower with the other boys on the team, who happened to be white.
Obama is a very good looking guy whom I have NO doubt got his “share” when he went out on the prowl, wherever it may have been. He sexual preference (older white men) is his business and should be expected considering his upbringing and the homophobia that goes on in the black community. I would not be shocked at all of that ol’ Rev. Wright was attempting to blackmail him but failed. Were I him I would tell anyone who attempted that kind of shit to go ahead, make my day. Publish it and see if I give a fuck, which he clearly does not.
TTTTom
@Kieran: I agree. To suggest that anyone only might have been gay is too despicable a profanity to permit on any media. I mean, what if that someone wasn’t? How dare Queerty allow Abe, with no further proof than his definitely undercover dalliances with other dudes, to be featured in such a favorable fashion? He truly is one of our most iconic figures and I don’t think I’m the only one who would like to see him the top.
MCHG
Look, it’s not that being gay is nasty or scandalous to most people, because it isn’t. It’s just that it’s in poor taste to make claims about the life of a person who isn’t around anymore to defend themselves. Just imagine that someone you loved and knew really well passed away, would you enjoy it if strangers started spreading gossip for everyone to gawk at? Of course not. The Obama rumors are politically motivated, regardless of their authenticity, so parroting them only does favors for the fringe of the right wing. The Nixon rumor is outright laughable. The idea that two people as powerful as a mob boss and a president would compromise themselves in such a way, especially back in those days is comical. Lincoln was depressive, bordering on suicidal, and his friends regularly slept with him… To keep him from killing himself. Almost everyone wrote the kind of passionate love letters to friends like Hamilton wrote back in those days. If that made you gay, then every president from Washington to Lincoln was queer. Buchanan is the only credible case, but he was also a terrible president, so I’d be wary of celebrating him as anything unless you want people to use his memory as an excuse of what harm a gay president can do.
Giancarlo85
@Bob LaBlah: Just not believing any of that sorry. And honestly, I am not saying being gay is somehow disrespectful (lol I am gay myself). But Obama isn’t gay or even bi. Lets be a bit more honest to ourselves and respectful of him as a person.
tricky ricky
Buchanan’s fiancée broke it off because he was in the company of the wife of a friend of his unescorted. she was a stickler for propriety. or that was her story and she stuck to it until her untimely death from either hysterics/melancholia over the event or a laudanum overdose (evidence for which is basically non-existent although back in those days women guzzled it in over the counter cure alls)
tricky ricky
@MCHG: Abe wrote letters. but, so did Washington. he had a lad he was quite fond of.
Bob LaBlah
@Giancarlo85: Obama has not denied using coke and marijuana. Since those two drugs make ninety-five percent of users horny for whatever they desire why would he be any different when he used them? The guy is damn good looking and I find it hard to believe he was not turned down by the majority of the guys he went after, though we all meet at some time in our life that one that said no.
I just think the man had a freak streak at one time and he grew out of it.
Kangol
BARACK OBAMA is how you spell his name, Queerty. Show the President of the United States, who’s been in office SEVEN years, some respect. Please.
Come on!
martinbakman
@sixtas: Sure nothing tawdry happened in their shared bed. They just liked to play games like …… Daddy’s gotta big stick.
gaym50ish
In Abe’s time, it wasn’t uncommon for two straight men or two straight women to share a bed.
Tackle
@Bob LaBlah: You’re not clever at all. Under the guise of supporting Obama, you are adding and abetting to the false gay rumors. And before spouting your verbal poo, try reading a book about Obama first. Then maybe you wont come off as such an ass. Your post is a major fail on several points. First off, Obama was never raised in a so- called Black community.
He resided among Blacks as an adult and after he and Michelle got married. And stop trying to make yourself feel better because you’ve an old ugly White man,believing that you are Obama’s type. First off, I don’t believe that Obama is gay or bi. And if he was, and just so happened to experiment, I doubt his preference would have been old and White. He seems like an ass man. And by him being athletic and loving basketball, he would have went for some jock, ( most likely Black) with a nice full muscular ass.Not some old pancake ass White dude like you. The only preference for you would have been during his drug and crack days,and from the money he could get from you. And that’s it. Now go smoke that.
And the reason why I don’t believe these stories,Obama looks to me like he hung. Big time. But obviously it’s speculation. But that’s one of the things we gays would surely be gossiping about. If a guy had an up close personal experience with Obama’s junk,more than likely, he would have told. There would have been a description. Like someone described Jered Leto’s and other celebrities/famous people. But nothing on Obama. So that should tell you something. It tells me,not true…
TTTTom
Tackle, you are absolutely right, “Obama was never raised in a so-called Black community.” Very few, if any, Arabs are.
The rest of your speculation, like you, is special; in a needy kind of way. It was entertaining, revealing and oddly incriminating.
Despite your being a reader of Queerty.com, and your uncanny ability to identify any and every individual by vividly describing their asses, I was surprised when I read further that you call yourself gay. If you are, you are a horrible homo. A wannabe at best.
While you think you’re an authority on matters you don’t know dick about, a lot of us, at least us older dudes, have heard of discretion. We also don’t feel a need to discriminate dudes. These are things I suspect Obama knows about.
You also display a great imagination but lack another trait most gays share, enjoy and have mastered and that is fantasies. @Bob LaBlah: Good one!
Giancarlo85
@Bob LaBlah: I love your rumors. You should write for tabloids. You seem to love stereotypes and generalizations too. Wow, here is a cookie. Maybe you should actually read a book about Obama as tackle has said. You wouldn’t get your facts so wrong.
I know you like gossip and you are fantasizing about him, but most of what you posted is unsupported verbose.
Obama’s type are females. He’s not gay or bi. And I would respect him as an ally and friend to the LGBT community. He’s done more than any other sitting President. Now lets stop being Perez Hilton wannabes, and lets get back to reality shall we?
Giancarlo85
Some us prefer reality and not fantasy. 🙂
TTTTom
The rest of us are able to enjoy both.
Maude
That first photo at the top makes me sick just to look at him.
I want a gay man or women for potus that I can be proud of.
That A-hole is a narcissistic liar intent on destroying everything American.
What good is legalizing homosexuality if he destroys the country we want to be free to live and love whomever we choose in?
I think he may have lost his mind sometime around the last few weeks of his first term.
Giancarlo85
@Maude: Go back to watching Fox News please. How is he destroying this country? Explain to me how. Destroying everything American? TALKING POINT. Learn how to post some real substance.
Obama has been far from great. Decent at best. But destroying this country? Hardly. That’s something his predecessor did very well.
Giancarlo85
@Maude: And I didn’t realize Obama “legalized homosexuality”. Wow. Wasn’t that done in the 1970s? And wasn’t the sodomy laws on the book struck down by the Supreme Court in 2003? Seriously, get a grip.
Large Marge
Them gosh-darned homersexuals be a-tryin to claim everybody is a little gay… just like honey boo boo did.
As for nixon and the mob boss, those most against it doth protest too much…. just sayin’.
Bob LaBlah
@Giancarlo85: @Tackle: I declare victory for the both of you and will now move on. To respond any further to either of your comments would amount to child abuse.
Giancarlo85
@Bob LaBlah: Yes, throw in an insult too. Have fun dreaming about Obama in that way lol.
Blackceo
@Maude:
LOL….Obama Derangement Syndrome strikes again. Of course you don’t have to like or agree with his policy/decision making, but destroying the country?!!!!!
Tackle
@TTTTom: And you can kiss the blackest part of my ass.
Tackle
@Bob LaBlah: Yoy are NOT Obama’s type. Never was.Ok!
Tackle
@Tackle:Typo: You
Maude
Yes, I do watch FOX, and yes, I do watch CNN.
How else to get both sides in order to best understand any situation?!!
You ask ‘how is he destroying our country?’….If you need to ask, no answer will suffice,
and for those who don’t need to ask, no answer is necessary…..It’s all there on CNN & FOX as well as the online newspapers & magazines that cater to both sides… the Left and the Right.
i sincerely hope obama is not gay, because I sure don’t want him in my camp.
Giancarlo85
@Maude: You have no answer. That’s the problem. You’re not thinking on your own and you’re just repeating what you’ve been told on Fox News. And CNN is Fox-lite. They’ve become right wing over the years.
What is all there on “CNN and Fox”? More lies and distortions?
And how is he destroying this country? And I’ll say the same about you… I sure hope you’re not gay, because I don’t want you in my camp. I don’t care for delusional right wingers who think they have the answer for everything and turn out to be wrong about everything.
You want to know who is hurting this country? Look at the House of Representatives and the right wing fanatics in there. Congress is the one that writes all the bills. What does Obama do? Just sign them. Congress is hurting this country and the GOP take-over is going to hurt this country EVEN MORE. It’s a wonder why a state like California with its extremely strong democrat majority is better off than ANY REPUBLICAN STATE.
Giancarlo85
@Maude: And one other thing, since you can’t name how he is “destroying this country”, you’re just relying on talking points. You have no substance. Much like Fox and CNN.
Ms Urethra Johnson
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, important in Washington’s arsenal… Sent to America by Franklin… has his statue right in front of my house… he was accused of homosexuality in Prussia… it’s actually on WIKI… the middle left pic on that page, not bad for a white wig… he was a “big boy” SPANK ME DADDY WARRIOR… Huge bulge even on the statue…
Maude
Believe what you will. I’m not here to convert you.
I don’t need outside affirmation of my opinions…I merely wish to have them read.
And as you can see, I’ve accomplished that.
Have a nice day. lol
Giancarlo85
@Maude: Your opinions are based on poorly backed claims and assertions. I asked you how he is destroying the country and all you can say is “look at Fox News for answers”. You don’t have an answer. You have no substance. You’re just a talking head, like those on Fox News. All you do is bring up talking point.
For one I think it’s people like you Maude that are destroying this country with your ultra-partisan rhetoric and disgust.
Yes, please have a nice day. Maybe next time bring some real substance and not just emotional talking points.
Maude
Unworthy of further comment.