Hot male celeb coming out roundup: Zachary Quinto, Ricky Martin, Taylor Lautner

BY ROB SALERNO – In a move that is sure to please lovers of Kirk/Spock slash fiction, actor Zachary Quinto came out this week in an interview with New York magazine.

Quinto — best known for the hit show Heroes, which was addictive at first but then got more confused and desperate as the years wore on — should have no trouble adjusting to life as a single gay man in his mid-30s.

Here we see Sylar about to devour a young man’s brain.

Speaking of people who officially came out long after the rest of the world figured it out/stopped caring, Ricky Martin is speaking out for gay rights in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. Considering that Nicaragua decriminalized homosexuality only in 2008, this is a pretty ballsy and important move.

If you don’t think so, just look at Honduras, where a serious movement among religious groups to ban Martin from entering the country simply because he’s a gay father almost derailed a concert he had scheduled there. After a few tense days, the Honduran government decided to allow Martin into the country.

“The government’s official position is to respect human rights,” says Ana Pineda, the Honduran justice and human rights minister. “Not allowing the Puerto Rican star to perform in Honduras would
be an intolerable and homophobic act.”

Bucking the trend, actor Taylor Lautner has come out as straight in an interview with GQ Australia. The magazine wanted to know if Gus Van Sant or Dustin Lance Black hit on Lautner when they all went out for dinner in LA together. And no, I’m not going to chastise GQ Australia (which is an actual magazine that exists, apparently) for assuming that the two gay filmmakers would hit on young Lautner because, well, wouldn’t you take a chance on Lautner? (Dustin Lance Black does a good job of chastising GQ on his own blog.)

That said, I’m perfectly okay with the guy who’s become famous for playing an anti-abortion werewolf in a film series about an abstinent vampire declaring that he’s straight.

 

Rob Salerno is a playwright and journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as Vice, Advocate, NOW and OutTraveler.

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