Talk show host Rosie O’Donnell planned on revealing the truth about her sexuality ten years before she did, but a magazine editor kept it from being published.
O’Donnell sat down with Marlo Thomas to discuss how times have changed for LGBT families. When she adopted her son in 1995, she maintained that those who were close to her knew she was lesbian although she wasn’t out publicly.
O’Donnell said she came out in an interview with ‘Cosmopolitan’ in 1992, but her comments regarding her sexuality were never published.
“At that time, nobody printed it,” she said. “I remember [Editor-in-Chief] Helen Gurley Brown took it out of an interview that [a reporter] had done with me in, like, 1992. He said, ‘Are you gay?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ She took it out … She was protecting me because at that time it would’ve been a huge issue, right? So, I think it’s changed a lot. I think it’s much more common and people are much more used to it. Being a part of a gay family was not nearly as troubling to my kids as being part of a famous family.”
O’Donnell came out publicly in 2002 at a show at Caroline’s Comedy Club.
