Closeted Life Quotes

Dating in the closet is torture. It's one of the most difficult things, especially if you are completely closeted.

I think as far as I've been able to understand from my friends that I went to college with and things like that is that it almost seems like Russian Roulette when you're coming out of the closet to your parents.

Rock Hudson let his gay agent marry him off to his secretary because he didn't want people to get the right idea.

As someone who was once in the closet, I can tell you it is the most sad, dark, awful, depressing place to ever be.

Gay life in 1970 was very bleak, compartmentalized. You didn't take it to work. You had to really lead a double life. There were bars, but you sort of snuck in and snuck out. Activism and gay pride simply didn't exist. I don't even think the word 'gay' was in existence.

One thing Jim McGreevey wants the world to know: Leading a double life as a gay man trying to appear straight was easy for him to pull off. He was 'good' at it. Not only that - it helped him become a better politician.

There was a time in the '90s where, as an African-American man, you had to be a misogynistic R&B star or a rapper, and I didn't fit into either one of those. I was advised by my label to remain closeted at that time.

In the '50s and '60s, the life of a gay man was a secret. Homosexuality was illegal, so you didn't draw attention to yourself.

In order to not have to deal with being gay in the world, you have to control everything. You try and walk in an un-gay way so as not to be found out. You try to control every situation, check the people around you, that you're not in the wrong place, and that can be exhausting. It goes on for decades, and it becomes mental sickness.

The truth is, I probably would be dead if I had become a star, because at that point I was so closeted and so afraid of people of finding out I was gay. There was no telling what would have happened.

I actually don't label myself, but... Some people call me queer; some people call me bisexual, whatever it is now. I'm happy with all of it 'cause it all sort of represents me, in a way. I spent a majority of my life in the closet.

I was closeted into my mid-twenties and even into my late twenties. It screwed up my relationships; it screwed up things with my family that I've since repaired.

I can't be a part of the problem. I hate the idea of a label just as much as anyone else but I'm with who I'm with, I love who I love and I'm if not a better actress than I was yesterday and my personal life should have no effect on that. I think that the injustice of people staying in the closet is more than I can bear with a clear conscience and I couldn't sleep at night if I was a part of that problem, if I was part of the lies.

As a closeted gay man, Jim McGreevey lived a life of presentation, a gay man portraying a straight man.