The handsome and ever-reliable Tuc Watkins has made quite a career for himself over the years, frequently playing out gay men in film and television—but he wasn’t always out himself.
As Watkins notes in a new interview with Thrillist, he’s been playing gay characters pretty consistently since the ’90s, which feels like a rarity. After breaking through on the long-running soap One Life To Live, he wasn’t exactly hiding his sexuality in the industry, but the actor wasn’t ready to go public, either.
“I feel like I was caught in a catch-22,” he shares. “I was a gay actor who shouldn’t play gay roles if I wanted to play straight roles. But I was also a gay actor who they weren’t hiring to play the straight roles because they knew I was gay. It’s amazing that I got any work.”
Related: Matt Bomer, Robin de Jesus and Tuc Watkins on gay shame, sex & ‘The Boys in the Band’
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Indeed, he continued to book, including the hit ABC drama Desperate Housewives as Bob Harper, one half of a successful gay couple who moved to Wisteria Lane in 2007, during the show’s fourth season.
It was during his run on the show that Watkins became a father to twins via surrogacy—something he’d long dreamed about. While doing the press rounds for Housewives in 2013, he stopped by Marie Osmond’s talk show, of all places, to discuss new fatherhood and, for the first time, his sexuality.
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While the coming out wasn’t necessarily premeditated, Watkins reveals to Thrillist that he was “hoping that it would come up.” He was on Marie, in part, to talk about his twins, how he became a father, and felt that “intrinsic to that was that I was a gay guy who wanted to have kids but couldn’t go through the traditional way of having children.”
So why then? Why to Marie Osmond? Watkins says it was for his kids.
“For a long time, I dodged questions about my sexuality and who I was seeing,” he shares. “Even on Desperate Housewives, for a long time, I was not publicly out. Everyone I worked with knew I was gay, and that’s just about a decade ago. I was still concerned that, if I put a rubber stamp on myself, I will only be labeled as one thing. I was still playing that silly game not that long ago.
I think what happened was, when I became a dad, I thought, ‘I don’t want my kids to see me dodging. I want them to see me being okay with who I am.’ For the most part, I was. I just didn’t want to talk about it publicly. My kids actually helped me become a little more comfortable publicly with who I am.”
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These days, Watkins is the proud father to two pre-teens, and is dating his former Black Monday co-star, Andrew Rannells. Yes, he’s still booking plenty of gay roles—most recently opposite Neil Patrick Harris in the splashy new Netflix sitcom, Uncoupled—but he doesn’t feel limited by that in the slightest (for one, he just played a straight character in Unconventional, the upcoming series from Eastsiders creator Kit Williamson).
Related: Neil Patrick Harris bares his soul—and much, much more—in new Netflix show
“When I did roles like I Think I Do and Beggars and Choosers, people said, ‘You can’t be a gay actor and play gay roles if you want to play a wider range of roles.’ But they were great roles, and I didn’t care. What has happened is, there have been more and more roles in the LGBTQ spectrum to play. There was a time not so long ago that the gay characters were the gay clown or the troubled person or the psychopath. There’s so many more roles available, and there’s so many more actors who are willing to play those roles.”
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Brian
I had a giant crush on him during the “Desperate Housewives” years. And in a twisted way, I actually felt guilty about that. I was under the impression that I was thirsting after a straight man, and that made me feel like a creep and a trope. So it’s almost a relief to finally hear the truth.
musiclover703
I’ve been a fan of his since his “One Life to Live” days. He was also fantastic in “Beggars & Choosers,” a Showtime comedy about the behind the scenes activity at a TV network. I recall during that time he was outed in a blind item in a Billy Masters column, describing him riding a float in West Hollywood’s pride parade.
Toofie
Loved him from his days as David Vickers on OLTL!
monty clift
When I saw him in the Mummy film, even though he lost his eyes and tongue I thought he was hot. He played the part so well, I felt bad that he was killed.
McSteve
Why is there no mention that he is going to be onstage in The Inheritance in LA this fall? This is a major theatrical event, wouldn’t he want it publicized?
XannaDont
Vickerman rules!
theaterbloke
I’m pretty sure I remember him doing a series of infomercials for exercise equipment at the start of his career. The premise was that he was an athlete with a female trainer who introduced him to a device that built strength by pitting him against his own body weight. Occasionally, her father joined in to show that even an older user could benefit from the machine. All were in great shape, though my preference shows when I remember him as the hottest of the three.