IT’S SAID that you’re nobody in Hollywood until you’re rumoured to be gay. Speculation about your private life and sexuality indicates that you’ve entered the public consciousness and ignited the popular imagination. For a journalist, photographer or blogger to create a story that suggests you’re gay first requires that you be someone of interest to a broad audience. For an editor to splash your “guilty gay secret” across the cover of a magazine means you’re a saleable commodity. And when another celebrity outs you or perpetuates rumours about you, it’s because your name carries more weight than theirs, and they’re looking for some cheap publicity.
This was certainly the case when Alexis Arquette took to Facebook to lambast Will Smith and his wife Jada: “When Jada comes out as gay and her beard husband admits his first marriage ended when she walked in on him butt-servicing his Sugar Daddy Benny Medina… then I will listen to them. Gays have enemies. They lurk in gilded closets.”
“Will Smith Is Gay” is eminently more retweetable than “Alexis Arquette says something”. But if there’s a million lies around everything true, what is it with Will?