Actress Amber Heard on Hollywood gays in the closet

The lesbian actress has said that staying in the closet for Hollywood actors leads to a “detrimental lie.”

The 25-year-old told Women’s Health magazine “You can’t respect yourself if you’re afraid to be who you are. It requires bravery to do something no one else around you is doing.

“But the risk was outweighed by the possibility of playing into this horribly detrimental lie that some in Hollywood perpetuate.”

The former model and star of Rum Diary ‘came out’ in 2010 as a lesbian because she didn’t want to be “part of the problem”. Heard at that point had been in a relationship for two years with photographer and director Tasya van Ree.

The Thorn Birds star Richard Chamberlain, who was ‘outed’ by a French magazine in 1989 – although he didn’t confirm his homosexuality until 2003 – said it was “dangerous” to ‘come out’ if you’re in the limelight. The 77-year-old actor advised leading male actors to keep quite if they were gay, adding;

“There’s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture. It’s regrettable, it’s stupid, it’s heartless, and it’s immoral, but there it is.” He told Advocate, continuing, “It’s just silly for a working actor to say, ‘Oh, I don’t care if anybody knows I’m gay’ — especially if you’re a leading man.”

Rupert Everett, who revealed he was gay 21 years ago, echoed Chamberlains sentiments, when in 2009, he suggested gay actors should keep their sexuality ‘quiet’ to avoid damaging their careers.

“Honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out.” He told The Guardian newspaper, concluding, “The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business… It just doesn’t work and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. You’re going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they’ll cut you right off.”

But it isn’t all negative. In October this year actor Sean Maher revealed he was gay and later The Playboy Club star told how he had been inundated with support from fans. ABC News host Dan Kloeffler told of his homosexuality live on air in America following their coverage of actor Zachary Quinto’s decision to ‘come out’.

The 34-year-old Star Trek actor, said at the time “Living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it, is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality.” Quinto told New York Magazine.