It’s easy to think about queer history as before Ellen DeGeneres came out and after she came out, but in reality, there were tons of LGBTQ+ celebrities who were living their lives out loud and proud long before the former talk show host announced, “Yep, I’m Gay” the cover of Time magazine on April 14, 1997.
Times have changed, and now celebrities are able to live their lives without fear of being blacklisted if anyone found out about their sexuality, but these queer stars were living lives outside of the closet decades before it became a little safe and more socially acceptable to do so.
From drag icons like RuPaul and Divine to actors like Angelina Jolie and Alan Cumming, these celebs have been out since before 1997.
Ione Skye
Bisexual Say Anything actress Ione Skye may have been married to Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz in the ‘90s, but while their marriage was on the rocks, Skye had an affair with model and actress Jenny Shimizu, who she met on the set of Four Rooms in 1994. "[Shimizu was a] masterful lover, sometimes a dominant one," she said according to Page Six. "She didn’t use whips or handcuff me to the bed, she just held this vibe."
Angelina Jolie
Bisexual queen Angelina Jolie started a much-talked about relationship with model and actress Jenny Shimizu on the set of Foxfire in 1996. "I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn't married my husband,” Jolie said of the relationship in 1997 in an interview with Girlfriend.
Lily Tomlin
Queer icon Lily Tomlin was already speaking openly about her relationship with June Wagner in 1998 when she gave an interview to People. "We share similar feelings about people and about the world. She's able to verbalize it, and I'm able to physicalize it,” Tomlin said about her relationship with Wagner, who she married on New Year’s Eve in 2013.
Divine
Divine, the iconic drag queen and frequent John Waters collaborator, lived her life as an out queer drag queen before sadly passing away in 1988. From starring in influential Waters movies like Pink Flamingo and Hairspray to inspiring the design of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Divine left an indelible mark behind.
Ian McKellen
British actor Ian McKellen — who famously played Gandalf and Magneto — came out as gay in 1988 in a live radio interview in the U.K. in order to argue against proposed laws in England that would have made it illegal for local authorities to "promote homosexuality.”
RuPaul
Long before RuPaul’s Drag Race became an international sensation, RuPaul spent the ‘80s and ‘90s as a fixture in the New York City club scene. Mama Ru hit it big in 1995 with the single “Supermodel (You Better Work)" and quickly became the most recognizable and commercially successful drag queen in the U.S.
Brad Davis
Actor Brad Davis, famous for his roles in Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire and Roots, never publicly came out as gay but acknowledged having sex with men and played a gay sailor in the 1982 film Querelle.
Amanda Bearse
Married with Children star Amanda Bearse came out publican as a lesbian way back in 1993 as a way to get in front of the tabloids who had been sniffing around during a time when she was expecting a child via adoption, Page Six reports.
Lea DeLaria
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It’s hard to remember a time when comedian and Orange is the New Black star Lea DeLaria wasn’t openly gay, and that’s likely because the butch lesbian came out way back in 1982.
k.d. lang
While most queer people would probably say they’ve always known k.d. lang was queer, the singer stunned the world by coming out in a 1992 issue of The Advocate.
Cheryl Dunye
Cheryl Dunye is best known for her 1996 debut lesbian film The Watermelon Woman, which is considered the first feature-length film written and directed by a Black lesbian.
Guinevere Turner
Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote the script for pioneering lesbian rom-com Go Fish, wrote and starred in The L Word, and played opposite Cheryl Dunye in The Watermelon Woman, has been out and creating queer cinema since the early ‘90s.
Craig Chester
Actor Craig Chester, best known for his roles in Kiss Me Guido, Circuit, and I Shot Andy Warhol, has been openly gay since the very start of his career in 1992 when he played Nathan Leopold Jr. in the Leopold and Loeb movie Swoon.
David Bowie
The man who brought us the androgynous space alien of Ziggy Stardust made conflicting statements about his sexuality over the course of his career, but he first talked about being bisexual in a 1976 interview with Playboy magazine, but then backtracked and claimed to be straight in a 1983 Rolling Stone article, written during a more conservative time.
Alan Cumming
Although The Traitors host Alan Cumming didn’t come out publicly as bisexual until 1998, the Cabaret star, who once dated fellow bisexual Saffron Burrows and has been legally married to husband Grant Shaffer since 2012, told Entertainment Weekly that he’s “always felt very bi-visible,” even coming-out to his first wife when he was only 21.
Cherry Jones
Tony Award-winning Broadway actress and Succession and Transparent star Cherry Jones began living her life as an out lesbian in the 1980s and once called Lily Tomlin as her “guiding light” when she was growing up because even though the 9 to 5 actress “wasn’t out, we all knew she was gay,” she told Page Six.