Playboy Club‘s Sean Maher Admits He’d Rather Read Playgirl
While Hollywood actors are under no obligation to come out of the closet, we’ve always found it unseemly when closeted stars take gay roles. So we tip our hat to Sean Maher, who plays a closeted married man on NBC’s The Playboy Club: He just came out in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“I’ve just never talked about it… but it’s so liberating. It was interesting to be coming to have a conversation that I was always afraid to have. This is my coming out ball. I’ve been dying to do this.”
Maher, 36, tells the magazine he’s been in a relationship with Paul, his partner, for nearly nine years and the couple have two children, Sophia, 4, and Liam, 14 months. Though he never explicitly lied about his sexuality Maher, who previously co-starred on the sci-fi series Firefly and had roles on Party of Five, CSI: Miami and Human Target, admits he dodged questions and remained secretive to protect his career.
“It was so exhausting, and I was so miserable,” Maher says. “I didn’t really have any life other than work and this façade I was putting on. So I kept my friends from college [where he was out] separate from my work friends, and that was very confusing. I just kept going on and on painting this picture of somebody I wasn’t. I didn’t have time for a personal relationship anyway. And you just don’t realize that it’s eating away at your soul.”
Welcome aboard, Sean—where do we send the present?
Image via Raven U
Very handsome man, leading man calibre. Good luck to him.
·
Ditto what verybookish said: I first noticed him in Firefly. There’s no way I’ll be watching Playboy Club, but I’m glad he felt comfortable enough to come out and I hope he and his family are very happy.
·
He is great in the Firefly series and Serenity, the movie that follows the series! I’m glad he feels comfortable enough to share this with us and everyone else! :)
·
Fantastic, what a great example compared to somebody like Jim Parsons who was the only emmy winner to not mention his family, his partner, his fiancee.
Great for Sean, welcome out of the closet!
·
Good for him for doing it himself and not letting the tabs or somebody else do it for him!
·
When I watched Firefly last year, I had (and still do) the biggest crush on him. I wished for his character to turn out to be gay. But the actor himself is gay? That’s even better! This made my weeeeek! :)
·
Well now it’s a shame the show is going to get cancelled anyway.
Hope he finds more consistent work
·
This reminds me of the free local NYC paper where, in the social section, was saying Taylor Lautner broke up with his girlfriend, how Bradley Cooper has had so many girlfriends and that Justin Bieber was looking for a girlfriend. The local free weekly gay mag here also had to state “the heterosexual Hugh Jackman” as if both Hugh Jackman and Taylor Lautner did not bring their boyfriends to the People’s Choice awards two years ago…
·
I remember him from his acting debut in the ill-fated tv series, “Ryan Caulfield Year One”, in 1999. No more secrets. Good for him :)
·
Congrats to him. Now we only have 9,000 other celebrities, including Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman, Anderson Cooper, Zachary Quinto, Taylor Lautner, etc., etc., etc. Oh my.
·
Funny how Wedding Wars was never mentioned in the article. He had a small role as John Stamos’s character’s partner. After watching that movie there was no doubt in my mind. He is a great actor and he really played the part extremely well…….
Another gay actor with seemly good morals. The best to you Sean
·
@spider_orchid: Eff that noise. The man is still sexy + I wouldn’t toss him out of bed.
·
Props, buddy! Loved you on Firefly and your character on The Playboy Club is growing on me. Maybe next Anderson Cooper will drop the silly charade and use his awful talkshow as a platform to reveal who he is.
·
@JoeyB: Tom Cruise can’t come out, he’d be sent to Scientology’s slave labor camps for embarrassing them. According to founder L. Ron Hubbard himself, homosexuals should be “disposed of quietly and without sorrow.” Plus, they’ve got so much blackmail material on Cruise that they can force him to stay in.
·
@Cam: I didn’t watch the Emmies this year, but Jim Parsons did thank his partner when he won it previously.
·
Interesting that he came out and he is a “nobody” in the scheme of things in Hollywood. I appluad him for his courage and doing the right thing. I wonder why Matthew Bomer, Anderson Cooper, Tom Cruise, Jodi Foster et al. who have nothing to lose since they have made a lot of money why they don’t come out. It’s nice to see that an unknown takes this great step of living his life openly. Not sure why so many bigger stars who certainly don’t need the money don’t take the same step.
·
A great interview by one of Hollywood’s finest actors – and one that sheds some unpleasant light on the practices of agents in Hollywood: one agent, after telling Sean he should be seen with a ‘girl on his arm’ and being told by Sean that he was gay said he should still have a girl on his arm. With attitudes like this permeating the industry, no wonder so many LGBT actors don’t come out.
But much kudos to Sean. I just wish they could bring back Firefly, that was a great show.
·
“Come out, come out, wherever you are….” It’s great when they say “it’s liberating”, because it truly is. BTW, is the coming out gift still a Panini Press?
·
Kudos to Sean Maher for coming out. I’ve been a fan since the first episode of Firefly.