What could have possessed Rupert Everett to say “I can’t think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads” earlier this month?
Was he on drugs? Was NOM blackmailing him? Did he have a horrifying encounter with Elton John and Ricky Martin?
The truth it seems, isn’t exciting as all that: Everett has a new memoir coming out. Nothing sells books like scandal and since Rupert mined all his in his last autobiography, 2006’s Red Carpets And Other Banana Skins, he probably decided to drum up some more.
In an article in The Guardian promoting the book, Vanished Years, Everett tried to clarify his statement:
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“For me, personally, the last thing I would like in the entire world would be to go through cocktailing my sperm with my boyfriend and finding some grim couple in Ohio who are gluten-free and who you pay $75,000 to have your baby. To me it feels absolutely hideous. But that’s me, just me. I’m not having a go at gay couples who do. I think if Elton and David want to have babies, that’s wonderful. I think we should all do what we want. Isn’t t
here a middle way, where you can just say, ‘Not for me, but it doesn’t matter’?
But no, everything’s sort of turned into al-Qaida. I’m sure I’m going to be nail-bombed. David Furnish is probably going to send [designer] Patrick Cox with a bomb and blow up the theatre.”
But just in case that sounded too reconciliatory, Everett threw some shade at gay marriage:
“But why do we want to get married in churches? I don’t understand that, myself, personally. I loathe heterosexual weddings; I would never go to a wedding in my life. I loathe the flowers, I loathe the fucking wedding dress, the little bridal tiara. It’s grotesque. It’s just hideous. The wedding cake, the party, the champagne, the inevitable divorce two years later. It’s just a waste of time in the heterosexual world, and in the homosexual world I find it personally beyond tragic that we want to ape this institution that is so clearly a disaster.”
Then again, maybe Everett isn’t trying to get attention for his new book. He’s currently playing Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss, so maybe he”s just gone Method—channeling a foppish but talented gay man whose hubris left him a shell of his former self.
Cam
“so maybe he”s just gone Method—channeling a foppish but talented gay man whose hubris left him a shell of his former self.”
___________________________
Not a great comparison. Even at his worst, Wilde was still funny and at least clever. Everett just sounds bitter.
James F
I use to see Rupert Everett all over the West Village (in the late 90’s) he was always very good looking but he was rude to everyone…(girls in the gym, staff at the Roxy)
…..The problem I guess is that he was “big” in the late 90’s now he’s not….Join the rest of honey…..You had your 15 min…….Its now all about Honey Boo Boo child….Get me some go-go juice…….
Spike
Someone needs to send him a lifetime membership card to every bath house anywhere and tell him to STFU.
Nobody is forcing him to get married to a man or a women.
Adam
So ridiculous. To be fair, for one thing, surrogacy is still controversial, and lots of people do see it as a little creepy. He seems to think that’s all being a gay parent is… ALL. Not just parenting. If he has issues with surrogacy, that’s an entirely different issue.
And wedding /= marriage. So get married in city hall. Have a little thing. And who said anything about there being wedding dresses at your GAY WEDDING?! My god. Wedding /= marriage. Get your facts straight, Rupert.
Andrew
So what Rupert is trying to say is that ‘marriage and kids aren’t my thing, but I won’t stop gay men doing or wanting that because I have no right to judge the relationships of others’. Rupert, that is how you express an opinion; with thought, curtsey and understanding.
tomsj
I think it’s unlikely that anyone will bomb Rupert any time soon for his views on marriage or surrogacy. In fact, I think it’s unlikely that anyone will remember those views (or Rupert) six months from now. (Unless, or course, he’s out flogging another memoir, which doesn’t seem at all unlikely, alas.)
petensfo
srsly… Rupert, who???
Opinions are like a-holes, eh?
Aidan8
He seems like such a dick. Bitter, bitchy, egomaniac. Blech.
Lyceius
I used to like him in movies, but this tired self loathing queen is starting to get on my nerves. He needs to go back to being washed up and faded away from the spotlight. He’s only saying these things for attention because he’s no longer relevant.
Billysees
He’s lost.
His contempt and cynicism about life is a typical characteristic of an unsaved person.
boring
Man, remember when it was 1994 and Rupert Everett was being totally fucking awesome in Cemetery Man?
What happened?
n900mixalot
Sounds to me like he is just being honest.
Stop being so sensitive about it. It is his opinion. You don’t have to buy his book.
Mjl-428
@James F: your comment pretty much summed it up about him…………… minus the good looking.
Red_Dragon_888
It should be a movie…..
FunMe
Rupert Everett: Hideous and Beyond Tragic
OK, there. I fixed it for you.
You’re welcome.
Superman
Rupert, Rupert, Rupert. You’ve managed to alienate the only demographic that would be remotely interested in buying your new opus. I predict your writing career is headed in the same direction as your acting career. Way to go, genius.
MartinDK
As is evident on comments section on queerty most people just dont bother to think for themselves, instead they take up whatever opinions are fashionable or whatever opinions they are told to have by influential people (sorry, after a long painstaking proces of inner searching, they decide to have the same opinion as everybody else that matters… my bad).
If anybody bothered to actually read what he says then there is not a trace of homophobia. So he doesn’t like surrogacy or marriage.
Surrogacy is abuse of poor people, and creates motherless children, because a gay couple selfishly choose not to be bothered with a biological mother (Children who might well feel an acute emptiness later in life from not having known the biological mother. Actually very common in adoptive children etc, often comes later in life when they get children of their own).
I can understand why marriage equality is important to gays, and i guess its mostly the equality part that matters to people since these same people are often anti-religion at the same time. There has, however, been very little talk about what is great about marriage itself compared with registered partnership, apart from being treated equal.
Surely a person should be able to think and search his feelings about an issue without being faced with angry mobs of people who do nothing of the sort. I believe its called free speech…
Dumdum
I love the Elton and David name drop like he knows them or something.@Aidan8: I like dick, it is an insult to dicks to call HIM a dick. Cunt. Now there’s a good word. Twat, wanker,bitchy bugger,bollocks to this shadow of a man. A poor player, that struts and frets his hour on the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Dumdum
@MartinDK: I agree. But I also think that this man is saying these things to get press. His career is so last week that in the entertainment business any press is good press. Taking an unpopular stance on issues creates a larger response. Surrogacy is wrong. Whether you are gay or not. Too many children already need good loving homes and there are already too many damned people on this planet. A biological imperative for breeding or the religious imperative to go forth be fruitful and multiply is moot. In a perfect world ALL children should have a mommy and a daddy who loves them and provides for them. But we do not live in a perfect world. Rupert Everett is not a nice person. He is a man without honor who takes an issue and tries to use it to his advantage in a very negative way. Why not just say “hey come see my play, it’s really good.” or “read my book,you might like it.” ? He is just another media whore trying to get his face on a page. And it is working rather well I might add.People ARE talking.
balehead
He makes sense….
Lefty
It’s a little odd that some people feel personally offended by his comments, even though he’s just attacking the idea of marriage – not gay people in general or anyone specific.
Tom_D
Some gay people are simply not in favour of the institution of marriage. It’s not that we don’t believe in equal rights its just that we don’t feel that we want to join in with this particular party. Surely there ought to be room for these views in the gay “community”? I’ve been with my partner for many years yet we have no intention of getting married even though we now can.
horace
Clearly his thinking is misdireted. So he hates marriage and we are all to be raised in
single head househholds and out of wedlock. Good luck with that idea. That’ll cure our
social expenditure headwall.
breal
Lately I noticed alot of ugly people making “shock and awe” statements about gays such as Rupert and the NJ Archbishop. I would encourage ugly people to continue making these statements. People take one look at the photo and then disagree with whatever they are saying.
Matter of fact, some pretty hot straight guys have been coming out to support gays and that has been a huge help. I would continue to encourage that. They should also do it shirtless, but that may be asking too much. But full consideration.
viveutvivas
Haha, I pretty much agree with what he said. It’s unfortunate how the gay civil rights struggle has been taken over by this inexplicable aspiration to seamlessly fit into Stepford.
norfolk23
what a bunch of nasty queens bitching about an actor with an opinion. He has a valid point about the “hetrosization” of gay men and women through parenting, church, military and marriage. This is not equality it’s aping straights.
Eric Auerbach
Boy, some queens sure do like getting offended. Besides, It’s not like he doesn’t have a point. There *is* something depressing about this need some gay men have to ape straight couples.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@MartinDK:
just so we know were you stand: if you to had choose a potential adoptee couple from either two gay men or a heterosexual couple, everything else being equal, which way would you jump marty boy? could you be neutral or will your quasi-religious theories colour your assessment? be honest now dearheart.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: *WHERE you stand.
Dumdum
We Gays are just so unique. I in fact identify with the Queer terminology. Most breeders these days are imitating us anyway; So many men look like homos that my gaydar is all messed up. A lot of false blips. Or ARE they? It is just horrible how these clones are trying to FIT IN. I used to be so proud to belong to such an eclectic group of subversives, now we have Gay Republicans, Gay Christians, Gay Parents, Gay Gynecologists. Where will it all end? Soon Gay men will stop going to the gym, start watching football,eating pizza and drinking beer. Shopping for clothes at K-Mart and buying inferior discount haircare products and cosmetics. OH THE HUMANITY! Oh my Goddess it IS the apocalypse. “We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
MartinDK
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID: it is sad to see a person being so filled with anger. You do know that anger leads to the dark side, right, darling…?
You do not understand the point that I make simple though it is. People have a need to know where they came from. It is an existential question that faces us all: who am I? To answer that we also look at our parents, we mirror ourselves in their images.
These questions become more acute when reaching adulthood. People cry their heart out on tv looking for their missing father or mother even when they are sometimes in their 50’es.
Another thing is that a mother has a special psychological significance that i will not explain to you, since it is a waste to throw pearls to swine… I think you know where to seek enlightenment though…
Gay people are from nature perfectly adequate parents. A gay man can be a good father. A gay woman can be a good mother. But no man can ever be a mother and vice versa, heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual or whatever. Sexual has something to do with who you sleep with not your parenting skills. Biological sex is more than a d*ck or a p*ssy however, as anyone who talks with both men and women will have to admit.
And to your question: It doesnt matter, since neither family are biological parents, and if you are to be fostered away from your real parents then one couple is as good as the other all things being equal.
MartinDK
@Dumdum: haha God forbid! LOL
scoobner1
Sounds like sour grapes doesn’t realize our community (New York, the west coast, and everything in between, INCLUDING OHIO) is about to get the opportunity to sit anywhere we want on the bus, and is griping about the upholstery.
Let’s hear her six months after Romney is inaugurated. I suspect we won’t. We probably won’t hear from very many queers, because we will be back there chasing the bus. Back there with Uganda and all the other backwater countries run by chuckleheads funneling public resources and channeling the will of a god only accessible to heteros.
Ask the folks at IGLHRC to tell you some stories about the horrors queers are enduring in not so much less civilised countries. Keep your eye on the prize friends. Participating with the world will be difficult from the society’s sidelines.
Niall
While I thought his gay parenting comment was asinine, I do kinda get where he’s coming from with the marriage comment, though I disagree with it. It’s a sentiment I’ve seen lots of other gay guys express too, though in a much better worded way.
Aetherguard
I used to idolize Rupert in the early 90’s. Loved his role in “My Best Friends Wedding”(irony not lost on me now). Even defended his jerkish attitude when I finally met him, albeit drunk at the time, at a Los Angeles private party. But, to equate ALL gays as wanting surrogate babies and church weddings is too much. Bitter much?! Sounds like a typical bully lashing out about the things they want inside but can’t have because the fear admitting it. I’m just saying…