Male Celebs Who Left Their Women For Men

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The norms around sexuality continue to shift and redefine themselves. Point in case: We're now discussing pansexual Star Wars characters. But for a long time in Hollywood, sexual fluidity was newsworthy stuff. In fact, the concept of a celeb being "secretly gay" used to be, and in some cases still is, a staple of tabloid reporting.

Instead of making this a "gay or straight" thing, we're going to focus on how the public sexuality of some famous men evolved over time. After all, isn't it a miracle when any Hollywood romance stands the test of time? And besides, the details of these relationships are far more interesting than the genders of those involved.

For example, one of these men had a sexual awakening after a drunken hookup. Another seemingly struggled with his sexuality his whole life, having at one point been out and proud in the mid-'90s, but then renouncing homosexuality as a sin in his older years. These are the male celebs who left their women for men.  

Of all the men on this list, singer Little Richard has probably caused the most controversy with his statements on sexuality. From declaring himself an "omnisexual" to denouncing homosexuals as "sick," the "Tutti Frutti" singer's spectrum of personal beliefs have been all over the place.

His latest stance, according to The Advocate, appears to be anti-homosexual again, based on remarks he made during a September 2017 interview on the Three Angels Broadcasting Network. He described relationships other than between a man and a woman as "unnatural affection."

Richard previously identified himself as gay to Penthouse in 1995, saying he'd been that way his "whole life." He reiterated that position in 2012, when he spoke with GQ about his relationships with two women: Lee Angel, whom he dated off-and-on for years after meeting her in 1956; and Ernestine Campbell, to whom he was married from 1959 to 1961. He said they both confused his homosexuality as just a preference for self-pleasure, of which he indulged "eight or nine times a day."  

To complicate matters even further, both Angel and Campbell still adamantly deny Richards' own claims of homosexuality. Speaking with GQ, Angel said that she had "never seen anybody except me touch Rich." Campbell told biographer Charles White that Richard's alleged homosexuality "had nothing to do with our separation and break-up."

Richard never publicly confirmed a relationship with a man, though several of his post-marriage statements about his sexuality seem to indicate that was certainly the case.

For as flamboyant as legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury was onstage, he was just as introverted about his private life. Notoriously press shy, the "Bohemian Rhapsody" singer didn't even reveal his AIDS diagnosis to the public until the day before he died of complications from the illness. He was just as private about his sexuality, choosing instead to remain relatively mum about it while simultaneously feeding into wild press speculation with ever-increasing onstage flair.

Mercury did have a well-known and lifelong companion in Mary Austin, the woman he dated for six years before ending the relationship by coming out to her as bisexual. According to an archived interview with OK! Magazine, Austin said that it was her decision to then move out of the home she shared with Mercury, although he insisted she live close by. Austin remained extremely close to Mercury and cared for him at his bedside until his death in November 1991.

Authors Matt Richards and Mark Langthorne tell a slightly different version of Mercury's "coming out" story in their biography, "Somebody to Love: The Life, Death, and Legacy of Freddie Mercury (via The Advocate). They wrote that when Mercury told Austin he was bisexual, she replied, "No Freddie, you're gay." Richards and Langthorne also maintain that Mercury referred to Austin as "the love of his life" even after he moved onto "a long-term relationship with another man."

Celebrity hair stylist and reality TV star Elgin Charles' seven-year marriage to Sister Sister star Jackée Harry ended in 2003. The pair remained more than amicable. They even continued to live together as of 2015, when they appeared on an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap. During the episode, Charles said, "We had the quickest Hollywood divorce ever." Harry agreed, claiming, "We discussed it, and what I needed. He did it for me."

Charles opened up about his marriage to Harry and came out as bisexual in his 2018 memoir, By the Way. Published excerpts in The Advocate indicate that Charles felt the marriage ended simply because they grew apart. He also confessed, "But there's a different kind of love there. ... It's not an eros love where it's sexual. But it's love, where you're making sure someone's OK and you're there for them."

In a May 2018 interview with The Advocate, Charles also revealed that he was as yet unaware of Harry's response to the memoir, although she did know that he was going to "tell his story." It's unclear exactly with whom Charles dated after Harry, but when asked if he had "a lover" during an infamous 2011 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show, he replied, "I've had many of them. I'm 50 years old, so I've done it all!"

Out of all of the men on this list, music mogul Clive Davis is perhaps the most open about his sexuality. In his 2013 memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life (via The Guardian), he describes the exact moment of his sexual awakening.

While married to his second wife, Janet Adelberg, Davis had a drunken sexual encounter with a man, of which he wrote, "Was I nervous? Absolutely. Did the heavens open up? No. But it was satisfying." After that, he separated from Adelberg and pursued relationships with both men and women.

Since that exploratory period, Davis has been in two long-term relationships with two different men since 1990, neither of whom he ever publicly named. The only other blip on Davis' public relationship radar is a 2014 allegation by his friend Rosanna Krekel's then-estranged husband, who claimed that she and Davis had an affair. Davis never commented on the allegation.

Elton John came out as bisexual in a Rolling Stone interview in 1976. It was regarded as a groundbreaking moment for LGBTQ acceptance in spite of the fact the John later mused that his sexuality was "not exactly a secret." He told Today in 2012 (via the Daily Mail) that at the time of the Rolling Stone interview he was even "openly gay outside" and "living with his manager."

Eight years after the Rolling Stone reveal, John raised all kinds of eyebrows when he married German sound engineer Renate Blauel, then divorced her four years later. According to Hello!, John never publicly addressed the marriage until a 2017 Instagram post in which he revealed that it failed because "I denied who I really was." John also described Blauel as "a wonderful woman for whom I have so much love and admiration," adding that their divorce caused her "sadness" and him "huge guilt and regret."

John met David Furnish (above) in 1993. They entered into a civil partnership in London in 2005, shortly after a law passed that allowed same-sex couples to do so, reported The Guardian. They married in the United States on the ninth anniversary of their partnership.