Rupert Everett Doesn’t Think His Past As A Gay Hooker Kept Him From Mainstream Roles

On BBC’s HARDtalk, perpetually cantankerous thespian Rupert Everett reiterated his belief that coming out is a career-killer and that his history as a gay prostitute had absolutely nothing to do with his lack of leading man roles.

“Straight men get every opportunity to play a gay part they want and then win tons of awards doing so but the other way doesn’t really work out,” the actor that once looked like Rupert Everett told host Stephen Sackur.

“It’s become possibly worse for an actor to come out because now perfumes are involved, skincare lines are involved. That means shareholders and so the mainstream actor has had to become straighter and straighter and straighter.”

Sackur then brings up Everett’s “brief period as a male prostitute” and wonders if it was not his gayness that was an issue so much as his “particularly wild past.”

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Everett mulls Sackur’s point briefly before responding, “Who’s to know? I don’t think so.”

While Everett’s “particularly wild past” probably didn’t help his career any — after all, he’s not the first actor to whore himself out in one way or another — neither did crap like The Next Best Thing or the self-described “burned bridges” he left in his acerbic wake.