Anyone who says they didn't know they were gay until they were in their 20s is lying. If you listened to him throughout the interview it was apparent that he did know but couldn't admit it for fear/cultural reasons. Never believe someone when they say they didn't know. We all know. It's a matter of denial, not lack of knowledge.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

oprah even asked him how could he not know till he was 20. she said she has friends who've know since they were little kids or all their lives. everybody should know this anyways.
[Edited 11/10/05 14:50pm]

brownsugar said:

I have known since I was four!

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

do i hear 3?! anybody...?!

uPtoWnNY said:

she does make me ill as well. She feels sooooo validated by being married. Low self esteem heffa.

If you look at a pic of Al and then a pic of Jonathan....well, they look very similar with all of that lip glass and powder.

Rhondab said:

Even I am not as pretty as those two!

Rhondab said:

i thought you misspelled lipgloss but now i get it

I picture Al & Jonathan doing the classic "Men on Film" bit from In Living Color.

uPtoWnNY said:

But with a real sex scene

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Absolutely. He took that bitter woman for a 6-year ride and she went along willingly - - but even if he weren't gay - she predicted the demise of their relationship from the get-go.

Was there a pre-nup? Is he contesting that? Ridiculous.

I was pissed with the whole interview. I thought it was totally one-sided and the two ladies pounced on Jonathan. I was so mad I wrote an email on Oprah's web site saying she should have been ashamed of herself. I think he DOES have some rights to her money. He she wrote a book and made a movie based on their relationship and they were married at the time (6 years), she did profit from the experience.

I still don't think they should critcize for him not having a homosexual encounter until he was twenty. I think a lot of people experiment and never go THAT way. Even the story line on Six Feet Under tackled it when Claire (who had dated guys) found the girlfriend so interesting that she wanted to be with her. She tried it, didn't like it, and is heterosexual.

Anne Heche anyone. I am not taking up for him. If you are gay, don't drag another woman in the picture and paleeeze don't marry her and wreck her life. But it was also traumatizing to come out once you go that far over to the hetero world.

She better check Steadman FOR REAL!!!! Even I have info on his downlow ass.

jthad1129 said:

He only has rights to her money in that we allow women to rip men off all the time for nothing more than having been married to them, even if for a short period of time. What's good for the goose is good for the gander right????

jthad1129 said:

This is the one thing that pissed me off. The rest of it I just blew off. But she kept insisting that if he was gay he simply must have had sex before he admitted to her that he was say. "That's like saying you're an alcoholic but you've never had a drink." I know she just thought she was being cute and clever, but my dear you can know you're gay without having sex. Did she not know she was heterosexual until she had sex? It's a ludicrous notion, almost as ludicrous as comparing homosexuality and alcoholism.

RipHer2Shreds said:

I kept yelling at the TV "sex acts don't make you gay!" when she said that over and over

RipHer2Shreds said:

that part bugged me, too. Oprah was all over that, too. i wished Robin had said something about that.

I would periodically ask myself, "When did Wanda Sykes marry a gay man?" But then I'd remember that she was talking to Terry McMillan. They were lookin' too much alike that day.

RipHer2Shreds said:

exactly, I totally understood. I was confused for so long that I did not have an actual 'encounter' until late. But honey, once I had it, I told EVERYBODY, I was so out. Once you have a taste of the nectar, you Never go back. Terry was just emabarassed because she was taken. He must have a big.....

You hit the nail on the head. No pun intended. Terry was pissed because she got flim-flammed! She got conned and even wrote a book about it. Nobody wants to be a patsy. But McMillan fell for the oldest trick in the book. She should've known better. Of course, her ex-hubby acts like he's innocent. I'm not surprised by that either. Con artists will tell you they don't con people. People con themselves. The best way to dupe someone is to tell them something they want to believe anyway. This guy did that and it paid off for him. I think he knew all along he was gay. He might've been in the closet. But he knew. If a guy gives you an erection, you're gay. He can't go 28 years without knowing something. There had to been some sorta epiphany moment prior to McMillan. But like most people, nobody wants to be depicted as a heel on nationwide television. This is sad people. When I first saw the dude, I suspected he was gay. I thought the same thing when I saw Star Jones' hubby Al Reynolds. In the latter scenario, I'm hoping I"m wrong. It's not about homophobia or discrimination. It's about not causing people unnecessary pain.

uPtoWnNY said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Women who cheat aren't entitled to money and niether should men be

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

That's not true. You can't speak for every gay person on the planet

Janfriend said:

Some people take a sexual experience to wake up and realize what they really are, but the vast majority of queer folks know what they are a long time before we have an experience to confirm it.

I've got a friend who swore he was straight, despite others' gentle suggestions he might not be. Some of us convinced him to come to a gay dance, and by the end of the night he'd found himself a cute boy to go have fun with. Maybe a week later he admitted it. "Well shit. I did have fun. Guess I'm not straight after all."

I knew I liked boys and girls as long as I can remember -years before I'd done anything more than hug another person. I knew I liked boys and girls when I'd only been with boys, and I know I like both now that I've been with both.

Everyone's experience is going to be different, but most of us do at least have an idea of our sexuality/gender before we do anything.

meow85 said:

and what age they discover that is not up to you to say, which is what I'm talking about

Janfriend said:

But if someone doesn't "realize" they're gay until they're in their 20's, chances are it was a case of denial and/or repression. I can't imagine how it could actually take anyone that long to figure out what excites them and what doesn't. It's not rocket science.

meow85 said:

But can I still say i'm not gay until I act upon it?

If i have always wanted to 'be' with a child, but never did it, am i a pedophile? If I always wanted be with a donkey and never did it, am i a beastialitist (?), You get what i'm saying?

I am gay. If i always wondered what it was like to 'be' with a woman, does this make me a heterosexual for what goes on in my mind? I hope not

So like Jonathan said, if he is married (had been for 4 years), never had a homosexual experience, and was kinda wondering what it was like. You can't call him gay, that's just curious? Or in the Donkey instance, freaky.


then give me the electric chair for all my future crimes

Rhondab said:

jthad1129 said:

Jonathan has NO rights to her money....give me a break. "Stella" wasn't even as big as "Waiting".....He didn't write anything, act in the movie, produce anything....he did nothing but fuck her and so for that...he deserves her money. he signed the prenup...he gets NOTHING!

She claimed on oprah that the book was written while they were dating and NOT during the marriage.

Listening and looking at him, he KNEW he was gay. He just was too scared to come out of the closet. I don't believe he was searching for his sexuality. He knew but was too scared to admit it.



Sexuality isn't based purely on the act. Many of us know we are straight or gay before we even kissed a boy/girl.

The confusion comes with societal attitudes toward homosexual and heterosexuality so its about how you WANT to be vs who you really are.

Rhondab said:

I only slightly disagree with that statement. I think he is entitiled to something because had he not been in her life, there would've been no Stella. HOWEVER, Terry has stated that she did give him some proceeds from "Stella" soon after the big success of the book and movie, not that he deserved it but as a gift and thank you, she says. So I don't know what the hell he asking for. You got ur check you spent it, don't go trying to rip apart a legal document after u cheated on your wife. You have a job, get to working ur ass off for some promotions if you want some money. This whole thing about him contesting the prenup is BS. You deserve nothing at this point
PS: I'M SOOOOO PISSED THAT I MISSED THIS SHOW. I DIDN'T EVEN SEE A COMMERCIAL FOR IT. I Didn't realize it until I came home from work late that night and saw the headline on the net. Now I have to stalk Oprah's website to see when the rerun comes on.
[Edited 11/12/05 9:39am]

PurpleRighteous1 said:

point taken

Ottensen said:

That's TM's modus operandi, I'm afraid. I've seen her do that on Oprah before, and I recall my Hampton U. friends saying she did that when she did a promo stop at the HBCU more than a decade ago (dating myself there).

A writer friend of mine pointed out TM's habit of trying to pass off thinly veiled autobiographies as fiction -- never a good sign among writers. Doesn't exactly scream ingenuity or imagination, my friend said.

Heck, I've always found her work to be hackneyed and exploitative, personally. But, more than once, it's created vehicles for black actors and actresses to showcase upper-middle-class life, Ebony-style.