Famous Women Who Unknowingly Dated Gay Men
It's every woman's fear: you meet a man, fall in love, then years later discover he was actually gay all along. Nobody knows that fear better than the following famous faces, whose relationships quickly went from passion to scandal, all while giving new meaning to the term "blind love." From Liza Minnelli to Fran Drescher, find out which Hollywood stars unknowingly had relationships with men who were gay or bisexual.
Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli was married for six years to Australian singer Peter Allen, whom she allegedly caught in bed with another man on their wedding night and who was rumored to have had an affair with Judy Garland's fourth husband, Mark Herron.
Gossip aside, Minnelli admitted to The Advocate in 2010 that she initially had no idea Allen was actually gay. "You know, people say things, and somebody said, 'I think he's ...," Minnelli said, on how she found out about his sexuality. "And I asked him about it, and he said that yes, there was that, but that he loved me. And I loved him, and we decided to try it, and we got married, and we tried so hard, but then it didn't work. But we stayed close, always, always, and of course I was with him at the end."
Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher spent three years with Hollywood agent Bryan Lourd, the father of her only child, Billie. That is, until he left her for another man in 1994. Despite the tabloid-friendly scandal, Fisher admitted to People in 2001 that she harbored no hard feelings. "I didn't feel like he took advantage of me," she said. "I picked him, you know."
She also learned to find a sense of humor in the situation. "He told me later that I had turned him gay . . . by taking codeine again," she wrote in her popular 2008 memoir, Wishful Drinking. "And I said, 'You know, I never read that warning on the label.' I thought it said 'heavy machinery,' not homosexuality—turns out I could have been driving those tractors all along!"
Fran Drescher
Two years after her 21-year marriage to high school sweetheart Peter Marc Jacobson ended in divorce in 1999, Fran Drescher found out Jacobson was gay. Speaking to People about the discovery in 2011, Drescher admitted it took her years to come to terms with Jacobson's secret. "I thought, Did he know he was gay when I was walking down the aisle? When we had a fight in high school and he said, 'I love you but I'm not in love with you?' " she said. "This made me wonder what we ever really know."
Eventually, she came around. "Our love is all-enduring and unconditional," she said of Jacobson, with whom she co-created The Nanny. "All those years weren't for nothing. ... He got in touch with his true orientation. I can't blame him for that." The former couple even reconciled well enough to work together on the TV Land sitcom Happily Divorced, which ran for two seasons.
Vanessa Redgrave
Tim Adler's 2011 book The House of Redgrave alleges that Vanessa Redgrave's husband, Tony Richardson, was bisexual and actually engaged in multiple affairs during their marriage. The couple's five-year union ended in 1967, ironically because he had fallen for actress Jeanne Moreau, according to the book. Years later, Richardson was diagnosed with HIV. He died of complications from AIDS in 1991.
Danielle Fishel
Boy Meets World star Danielle Fishel famously dated 'N Sync member Lance Bass for about a year, during which they attended Fishel's high school senior prom. Bass, of course, famously came out on the cover of People in 2006, although Fishel said she never suspected anything until after they had broken up. "I was a little naïve because I was 17," she told OK! in 2009. "I didn't really have a lot of experience in relationships, but my mom had actually suspected and had said something to me after we broke up. She asked me if I thought it was a possibility, and at first my reaction was like 'Nooo!' And then, the more I thought about it, I was like 'hm, maybe.'" Fishel added that she and Bass remain "very good friends" and insisted, "I absolutely adore him."
Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell when she was just 19. Nine months after they separated, the Oscar-nominated actress says she found out he was gay. "My first great, great romance. It was a terrible tragedy," Lansbury told People in 1993. "The desperate part was that I was so in love with him." Despite the tragic circumstances, Lansbury said she found a way to weather the storm, adding, "We remained friends until he died [of cancer] in 1960."