Despite headlining the Long Beach Lesbian & Gay Pride event, Latifah said it was not her way to come out of the closet.
- Jun 3, 2012
AceShowbiz - Queen Latifah was not trying to make a statement at the Long Beach Lesbian & Gay Pride event last week. The "Joyful Noise" actress said attending as Grand Marshall at the festival does not mean she came out as a lesbian.
"That definitely wasn't the case. I've never dealt with the question of my personal life in public. It's just not gonna happen," Latifah said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Her sexual orientation has been long debated. At the gay pride she told the crowd of 10,000 fans in Southern California that she had been "wanting to do this for a long time".
Despite the denial, it was a pleasure to perform for gay audience. "To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things," she said, adding, "My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year's Eve in San Francisco. Tupac happened to be in town, so he came to kick it with me. This was the early '90s. And the boys were like, 'Take your shirt off, Tupac!'. He wasn't doing that. But we had a blast in there."
The 42-year-old also sent her support for her gay fans, saying "I know that the most important thing and the only thing I have to give is love. When people are going through hatred and bullying, the biggest thing to fight that is love."
