Lance Bass Reveals
He's Gay:
'I'm Not Ashamed ...
I Don't Think It's Wrong'
'I support him and
wish him all the happiness
in the world,' Justin
Timberlake says
Jennifer Vineyard,
mtv.com/news from the Web, July 28, 2006
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Photo:
Ethan Miller/ Getty Images |
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After years of speculation, Lance
Bass has confirmed the rumors and told People magazine that he is gay.
The rumors started during 'NSYNC's heyday (the group is currently on hiatus) but
heated up in the last few months as he was spotted frequently with gay-rights
activist and reality-TV personality Reichen Lehmkuhl, who won the $1 million
prize on "The Amazing Race 4" with his former partner Chip Arndt. Lehmkuhl
has since appeared on other reality shows such as "Fear Factor" and hosted a
talk show on the now-defunct Q Television.
After tabloids and gossip sites started tracking Bass and Lehmkuhl's public
appearances together, Lehmkuhl responded in mid-April by posting on his Web site
that he likes to keep his personal life private. "As for the rumors about
me and Lance, please continue to remind people that things that I do not discuss
anymore, such as the private and personal relationships that I have, are just
that — private — unless I choose to open up with details to my family and close
friends for reasons of support and love," he wrote. "I wish people could
allow that part of me for, well, just me and who I choose to share my life with
and love ... and to leave it well enough alone."
Despite this wish, Bass told People that the rumors about the two being a couple
were "really starting to affect my daily life," so he decided to come forward
and confirm that they're in a "very stable" relationship. "Now it feels
like it's on my terms. I'm at peace with my family, my friends, myself and
God, so there's nothing else that I worry about."
It also helps that Bass no longer feels compelled to hide his private life to
protect his bandmates, since the band has been on hiatus for four years.
When 'NSYNC were in full swing, he worried that coming out would hurt the band.
"I didn't know: Could that be the end of 'NSYNC?" he told People.
"So I had that weight on me of, like, 'Wow, if I ever let anyone know, it's
bad.' So I just never did ... I had four other guys' careers in my hand,
and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said [that I was gay], it would
overpower everything."
Bass said he's known that he's gay for his "whole life ... from childhood on,"
but struggled because he knew it would be "something that I would have to hide
my whole life." Bass hid it from his bandmates — who suspected anyway
"because we were like brothers," he said, and they wondered, " 'Why aren't you
hitting on women all the time and acting like a rock star?' Because I was
a good Christian boy, that's why."
Their suspicions were also complicated by the fact that Bass was dating women
until he was 22 (he's now 27). "I've definitely, you know, been with
women," Bass said. "And I've had great relationships with them where I was
definitely in love. It's just I grew to a point where deep inside I knew
that I could never truly have a relationship with a woman. I don't know if
they ever suspected. It was never brought up."
"He took years to really think about how he was going to tell everyone," Joey
Fatone told People. "I back him up 100 percent."
"I've know Lance for more than 10 years," JC Chasez told MTV News. "We
have been through so much together. He is family and I support him
unconditionally."
Fatone was the first 'NSYNC bandmate Bass told about being gay, after Fatone
walked in on Bass and a male date at his house in Orlando, Florida.
Fatone's response at the time? "Dude, I don't care," Bass recalled him
saying. Chris Kirkpatrick found out last summer and JC Chasez three months
ago.
"Very few people have the guts to come up to you and say, 'Hey, are you gay?' "
Bass said. "I'm pretty sure they all knew and they probably all talked to
each other, but they had the respect to let me tell them. I haven't had
the conversation with Justin [Timberlake] yet. I know he knows, but I've
never really sat him down and said it." I will be calling him."
"Lance is one of my great friends," Timberlake told MTV News Wednesday (July
26). "I support him and wish him all the happiness in the world."
Telling his bandmates has been easy, but telling his family was another matter.
His sister became pale and started crying when he told her, while his mother
"broke down." "The worst part about it was my mom found out not from me,"
Bass said. "She found out on the Internet, and that's what just killed me.
... It destroyed her for a little bit." His father, in the meantime, was
concerned about diseases, telling Lance that "It's much easier for gay people to
get AIDS," and "Statistics show that these relationships don't last. You
know it's not going to last." "I was like, 'Dad, wow!' "
In Bass' hometown of Clinton, Mississippi, where his mother is a middle-school
teacher and his father works in real estate, being gay is "not looked at very
highly," he said. But as worried as he was that his grandparents would
take it even worse, his maternal grandmother, who was told last week, handled it
"so well," he says. "She was like, 'You know what? I may not agree
with it, but I love you just the same and you're welcome in my house anytime.' "
For now, Bass and Lehmkuhl are "taking it one day at a time," since the
relationship is only a few months old. They met because Lehmkuhl was Bass'
real-estate agent, and the two became friends, then lovers. "This is a
huge turning point in my life and also in his life too," Bass said.
Eventually, Bass would like to have a family and hopes to have his own kids as
well as adopt.
"I want people to take away from this that being gay is a norm," Bass said.
"That the stereotypes are out the window ... I've met so many people like me
that it's really encouraged me. I call them the SAGs — the straight-acting
gays. We're just normal, typical guys. I love to watch football and
drink beer."
And if people ask him now if he's gay, Bass said he plans to respond, "No, I'm
also gay." Meaning that it won't define him — just the part of himself
that he doesn't have to hide anymore.
[This story was originally published at 1:07 pm E.T. on
07.26.2006]
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