WELSH BET

Action Star Luke Evans Doesn’t Realize His Gay Past Is All Over The Internets

Queerty reader Joseph Jones directed us to the interesting case of rising star Luke Evans, who hails from Wales (tee-hee) and has been garnering attention with roles in The Three Musketeers, Immortals, The Raven and Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated adaptation of  The Hobbit.

Evans came out early in his career and did several candid interviews with the gay press, discussing his decision to be out, how he thought it would impact his career and even his taste in gay porn. So why is he being portrayed as straight in the British press these days? Don’t his handlers know the  truth is just a few mouse clicks away?

Back in 2002, Evans starred in the Boy George musical Taboo in London’s West End and gave an interview to The Advocate, where he was quite open about being gay.

I knew that even though my part was a straight character, everybody knew me as a gay man and, in my life in London, I never tried to hide it. I knew I was going to have to do interviews with gay magazines, so I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to be open’. It’s who I am. And if people don’t like it, then I don’t want their jobs. I’ve never been a very good liar.

Two years later, in 2004, Evans chatted with GaydarNation about his role as a gay porn star in the play Hardcore. Here’s a telling snippet:

So, have you spent a long time researching gay porn?

Years and years. I bought my first film when I was 15 and now I have a good collection and I add to it regularly. I research it almost every night!!

What makes a good porn star?
An enormous big fat cock!

So far so good! Evans appeared in several West End musicals, including Miss Saigon, Avenue Q and Rent before signing with new management in 2009 and redirecting his career toward movie roles. He made his film debut as Apollo in Clash of the Titans, played a small part in Robin Hood, and appeared in the 2010 British rom-com Tamara Drewe. That’s when things got weird.

The September 12, 2010, edition of the Daily Mail reported:

Handsome Welsh actor Luke Evans, 31, who stars with Gemma Arterton in  Tamara Drewe, is dating fashion industry PR Holly Goodchild, 27—even though she describes herself as single on Facebook.

After being friends for some years, the pair are now an item, Holly said at the premiere of Luke’s film last week. ‘Luke’s lovely – we’re really old friends and it just sort of happened,’ she said. He added: ‘We are nowhere near engaged but things are really good.’

Sure there are bisexual actors, but to go from proclaiming yourself gay—and admitting you’ve been watching gay porn religiously for 15 years—to being linked to a PR flack (the beardiest job in the world, FYI) is a real head-scratcher. And in his early candid interviews, Evans never says anything about dating women—it’s all gay, gay, gay.

In a more recent interview with British Cosmo Evans is slightly more evasive.

“Just the other week, I sang to a very close female friend. She almost cried. And I love to cook! I’ve impressed hundreds of women with my cooking. And they always come back for more.”

“Absolutely we can have female friends and not want to have sex with them. You dream about having sex with them, but you don’t actually have sex with them.”

“In 10 years, I’d love to live near the sea, in a warmer climate. I could see myself with three dogs…and it’d be great to share them with someone else.”

Ah yes, “someone.” The pronoun game lives on!

We’re not saying all actors have to be out. We’re not even saying you can’t explicitly pretend to be straight (though it’s kind of gross). But once you step out of the closet and into the light, you can’t go running back in when its convenient. This isn’t the 1950s—or even the ’80s—when homo hijinx could be hushed up with a few phone calls. In the Internet Age, to borrow from the Bard, the penis that men do lives after them.

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