Coming out: The new-age lesbian lovers
LINDSAY LOHAN, who has publicly confessed to falling for another woman, is typical of a new breed of defiantly glamorous stars.
It was hardly a startling revelation. After months of attending glamorous soirees locking lips and exchanging amorous glances, Lindsay Lohan has confirmed she is ensconced in a gay relationship with the British DJ Samantha Ronson.
“She loves me, as I do her,” gushed the 22-year-old actress.
If nothing else, the admission reiterates how attitudes have moved on since the golden era of Hollywood when Sapphic screen sirens such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich were forced to disguise their sexual inclination or suffer career suicide.
The point had already been made in March when a misty-eyed Ellen DeGeneres announced on her American chat show she was planning to marry her actress girlfriend Portia de Rossi and received a standing ovation from the audience.
Now Lindsay has joined the growing list of showbiz lesbians – such as comedian Rosie O’Donnell and her partner Kelli Carpenter – who are candid and visible.
After mother-of-two Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda in Sex And The City, confessed to a relationship with education activist Christine Marinoni in 2004 she described the attention as “a wild, crazy thing” but added: “It was like a fire; it flared for a bit and then died down.”
Her career remained unaffected, as did that of Drew Barrymore after she dumped her boyfriend, guitarist Eric Erlandson, in the mid-Nineties. “Let’s just say I like women sexually,” announced the bisexual Drew.
Let’s just say I like women sexually.
While actress Jodie Foster – now dating writer Cynthia Mort – was reluctant to speak about her 14-year relationship with film producer Cydney Bernard until it was in its dying embers.
The example of Dusty Springfield illustrates the change in social attitudes. When the singer admitted in 1970: “I’m perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy,” she didn’t have another hit for 15 years.
Compare Madonna in the mid-Nineties teasing the public with the possibility of her steamy affair with US comedian Sandra Bernhard and the difference is palpable.
Others who have flirted with lesbianism in modern times include actress and model Saffron Burrows – who admitted “Sapphic dalliances” and has been linked to Harry Potter star Fiona Shaw – and Angelina Jolie.
“I’ve never hidden my bisexuality but since I’ve been with Brad (Pitt), there’s no longer a place for that,” she says.
More committed couples include BBC sports broadcaster Clare Balding and her Radio 4 newscaster partner, Alice Arnold, as well as actress Sophie Ward.
She shocked people by leaving her husband in 1996 for writer Rena Brannan but they have remained together ever since.
