the famous

How Did Wanda Sykes Escape the Pressure (From You People) to Come Out?

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What do Rosie O’Donnell and Wanda Sykes have in common? Besides being funny ladies? And gay? And famous? And activists? They’re both parents.

“It is totally different … but it’s good, it’s a positive thing. Now, you want to go home,” Wanda tells Rosie of parenthood, which she says was never one of her life’s goals. But enough about that, let’s get to salaciousness!

From Matt Bomer to Clay Aiken, there’s intense pressure of Famous Gays to come out, because supposedly the more high-profile homos walking red carpets and chatting from the box means a better chance at average Americans supporting LGBT equality. (Not everyone agrees.)

So it’s interesting to hear Rosie say (around the 4:10 mark) how much pressure she felt to come out, and that it came from the gay community, particularly from former Advocate editor Judy Wieder. But Wanda says her experience was very different: She didn’t feel any demands from fellow gays to make her sexuality known.

Which is, theoretically, how it should be. But with so few out gay celebs, there remains a yearning from inside our demographic to want to see more of our kind make it. So we can play our favorite game: knocking them down.

(audio via)

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