Arts + Pop Culture

Ellen Page Is Gay: Ellen Page Comes Out, Makes Best Valentine’s Day Ever

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Happy Valentine’s Day, ELLEN PAGE IS GAY! While speaking at the HRC “Time to Thrive” conference promoting the welfare of LGBT Youth at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the 26-year-old actress said that she was “tired of hiding, and tired of lying by omission” because THIS:

“I’m here today because I am gay. And because maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility… It’s weird because here I am, an actress, representing — at least in some sense — an industry that places crushing standards on all of us. Not just young people, but everyone. Standards of beauty. Of a good life. Of success. Standards that, I hate to admit, have affected me. You have ideas planted in your head, thoughts you never had before, that tell you how you have to act, how you have to dress and who you have to be. I have been trying to push back, to be authentic, to follow my heart, but it can be hard.”

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The HRC has wished her congratulations and consequently their website has crashed.

Obviously her queerness isn’t a big surprise to us, but the fact that she has decided to come out is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. Seriously, I just had to get this post up so we could celebrate together as a family, but needless to say there will be much processing to come.

UPDATE: Here’s the video of her speech at the conference. It’s really beautiful and touching, and she really opens right up and lets you see how she has struggled with this revelation, and the expectations placed upon her by her work, and we really get to see her whole heart in a way we don’t get to see in magazine stories about coming out.  It’s moving, it’s awesome, and it’s LOVE.

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Riese is the 36-year-old CEO, CFO and Editor-in-Chief of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, blogger, fictionist, copywriter, video-maker, low-key power lesbian and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and then headed West. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 2554 articles for us.

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259 Comments

  25. Not even the slightest bit shocked because I think we all pretty much knew but holy crap I was starting to think she would never come out and even think maybe she was a mis-blip on the radar. But no. I love seeing more openly gay mainstream actresses, seems to be more of a trend of gay mainstream actors coming out lately than actresses.

  31. I really appreciate how she acknowledges all the systems and social forces that have influenced her not to come out and feel free to be authentic until now. It is a nice reminder not to forget that. Yet also, now she is free to be free! Babely queer Canadian. CONGRATULATIONS ELLEN. I just tweeted her and am thrilled that she might actually read it.

    • *what* of all the changes on this website and I still can’t edit my comment.

      But yes I hate the “we already knew” attitude. I’m cool with the “I had suspicions because of the stereotypical aesthetic you’ve got going on” but the “lol and water is wet” attitude makes me stabby.

  61. OMGOMGOMG Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Happy Valentines indeed!

    ….aaand that video made me cry.

    “I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered.” THIS A THOUSAND TIMES

  67. Oh my god this is just perfect. I was already having an amazing valentines day vacation with friends, drinking beer and listening to live music and this is just the best. Can’t wait to get back to the hotel and watch the video. And I’m so grateful to have this community to bring me super relevant breaking news and celebrate together. <3

  68. Y’ALL. My horoscope earlier this week said I would have a “meaningful dream” and on my way to work (teaching), I was telling my girlfriend that actually I didn’t have a “meaningful dream” because my whole dream was Ellen Page coming into my classes and being like “I’m the teacher now! Sit down, you’re a student” to me, BUT it turns out that it was a meaningful dream because Ellen Page is gaaaay and horoscopes are reeeeal!!!!

  71. Oh the video, you can tell she was so nervous, it’s so sweet. She’s so brave- I could barely get the words to come out when I was talking to one of my siblings, I can’t even imagine coming out in front of a room full of listeners.

  76. Facebook exchange:

    person a That sound you just heard was 23,453 lesbians swooning to the floor at once.
    23 minutes ago · Like · 2

    person b LOL true dat; she is a LOOKER.
    23 minutes ago · Like · 1

    Robin 23,453 lesbians *and bisexual and queer women!* don’t forget us. Also swooning. *fans face*
    about a minute ago · Like · 1

  82. I really wasn’t expecting her to come out this year even though I’m totally not shocked at the news. Congrats to her! And I should totally feel bad for want to gloat in the faces of all the straight people who didn’t believe me when I said Ellen was one of us but I don’t. IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!!!!

  86. I was more moved by this than I anticipated, because the video adds this whole other layer of emotion; her nervousness is so palpable and familiar. You can practically hear her heart threatening to beat out of her chest when she’s building up to finally say the words, it was a very visceral reminder of the first time I ever came out to someone.

  89. In all seriousness though y’all, I just burst into tears listening to her speech because she said everything I still want to tell my parents after years (and some of what I did say when I came out to them last year). I know I been joking for years about her being gay, as have others, but her comments really resonate with me in a way that I both appreciate and hate. It took me seven years to come out to my parents, and I hid so much from them and other folks during that time. I’m happy she came out for her sake, but it also makes my heart ping to hear my own thoughts and feelings come from an awesome mainstream actress whose work I love. In the large scheme of things, her coming out is just a step, but it’s a step along side so many other amazing folks coming out as their full selves in the public eye. And that makes it easier for other people, young and old. So really, I’m happy about this in more than just a “yay, we were right!” and a “my crush!” way.

    …ok, done now.

    • Yeah, she pretty much articulated all the reasons I stayed closeted for so long and also the damage that being closeted does to a person. I was second-hand nervous all through the video, her words hit so close to home it could have been me up there.

  97. That was really spectacular!! I never saw Juno though, now I really feel like I need to go back and see it.

    One other thing it brings up in my mind though: X-2 was actually one of the things that played a role in gradually encouraging me to come out as trans and have the courage to transition and not be afraid of openly being who I really am. It honestly helped me to understand that if someone saw me as a freak, it didn’t mean there was something wrong with me, it meant there was something fucked up in their minds.

    That having been said, X-3 (where I think they first introduced Kitty Pryde?) was a huge let-down for me… now that I see Ellen has come out, I just really, really hope they bring Bryan Singer back to direct the future movies again and get the series back to where it started, when it wasn’t just throwing comic book characters at a movie, but it actually told a story and had a message that went with that.

    Sorry, I realize I’m going on a slight tangent with that, and I don’t want to take away from the awesomeness(!) of the moment… but it would REALLY be awesome if she was part of a blockbuster movie that had that kind of politics… anyways… feelings…

    • Okay, so it turns out that this whole next film has been in development and yes with Bryan Singer as director for like well over a year now and I just had no idea.

      In a related development, it turns out I don’t do a very good job of following pop culture.

      It’s scheduled to be released in May and the best part is that we’ll get the honor of seeing it here in Japan about three months after everyone else 🙂

      trailer, with, like two secs of our friend Lady Page:

  98. The sound I made when I saw this was inhuman. It is three in the morning and that speech was awesome and moving enough to make me comment on a website I never comment on because I’ve kind of been waiting for this forever and rarely do I have celebrity crushes but dude she is at the top of the freaking list and oh my god I’m so excited I don’t know what even

  99. I’m happy she came out. Some people have been pulling her out from the closet for years and that didn’t seem right. People shouldn’t do that. I’m happy she came out in her own terms and her own time.

  101. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

    Woke up and my gf told me Facebook said Ellen Page was gay and I just BEAMED WITH JOY

    Then immediately looked for the celebratory AS article and like 3 of my friends had shared it already PERFECT EVERYTHING IS PERFECT AND MOST OF ALL ELLEN PAGE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! Welcome friend. We knew already and you are so brave and strong.

  102. !!!!! Look what happened when I was off performing in Rocky Horror. All my top crushes have been coming out this decade. I just need Lizzy Caplan and Rosario Dawson now…

    So, will Ellen confirm that she dated Drew Barrymore? Because I was sure they were dating, back when they were making Whip It and there were a billion suggestive photos of the “new best friends.”

    • We covered the Ellen Page – Drew Barrymore situation with intense dedication FOR REAL… I have so many Elldrew feelings. Honestly, sometimes it seemed like that thing where you’re a baby gay and your gorgeous sexy best friend is sort of into girls and she knows you have a crush on her and so you are super affectionate in public and hook up in private but she’ll never take that next step to being your girlfriend for real. even though she’s also totally in love with you. and she just seems like the greatest and you are obsessed. but maybe i’m projecting.

      i feel like the second picture in this strip says it all:

  103. I am crying so hard right now.

    I suck with words, but I just want to write about how seeing how nervous she was but was still able to come out is so inspiring. I’ve been half out for a couple months now, and I get so pissed off at myself for shaking and hesitating whenever I want to say the words “I’m gay.” I am so proud of and inspired by her for doing this. It is something I really needed to see.

  104. People I love keep turning the world upside down as I sleep! First Beyoncé and now this?!

    **Sticks matchsticks in eyelids and waits for more glory**

    I’m almost scared to watch the video because I’m already in love with her… my heart is TOO FULL FOR THIS.

  108. Today I was at a bar for birthday drinks with some gay/Autostraddle-reading friends, when the birthday girl said, “Oh hey, I dunno if you’ve been on the Internet much today, but Ellen Page came out,” and there was much rejoicing.

    That lead to a discussion of whether or not Autostraddle has these coming out posts queued up like some news agencies do with celebrity obituaries, but aaaaaanyway.

  110. I just woke up to this, I watched Juno yesterday and Inception is my favourite film. Ellen Page coming out fills me with the warm fuzzies and further validation to my celebrity crush.. I’M COMING ELLEN~ Time to play All I Want Is You, ALL DAY LONG because celebrities coming out is AWESOME.

  113. What a beautiful and touching speech. You could tell how nervous she was bless her. I know many people always suspected but I don’t think it is right when people try and force people to come out or call them cowardly for not doing so. Coming out is such a big deal for every individual who does it and there is still such a long way to go and so much bigotry out there. Whether it is career pressure, worry about family and friends reaction etc, there is a lot that can be effected in a negative way. I have already seen people slamming her for not coming out sooner and I’m sure there will be the obligatory “I didn’t have to come out as straight” comments from people who really don’t have a clue.I hope this inspires people and I’m sure it will.

  114. The news has just reached Lisbon, Portugal, and I am so happy for her! And for the community! I can see the rainbow growing and it makes me feel less alone and more empowered 🙂

    Happy Ellen Page Day! <3

  116. I had the perfect post V-day morning. Woke up checked twitter and Allison Weiss had posted a link to the speech video so I watched E-Page come out, cried, screamed, explained to my gf who thought I’d hurt myself, rt’d, fav’d and replied and then A-Weiss fav’d my reply. Winning.

  118. This is so great! I cried watching the video. It might sound strange but so far there hasn’t been a celebrity coming-out that I’ve really cared about as much as this one. This makes me feel all warm inside, I can’t stop smiling about it.

    As someone who is new to all this, I’ve noticed on all the comments on articles (yes, I know “never read the comments”… except on Autostraddle ofc) that are a LOT of straight people who are saying “how is this news, I couldn’t care less who people sleep with, love is love, etc”.

    I mean, it comes from a good place I suppose. But I wish they could comprehend that it is EXTREMELY important for people like me who are in the early stages of accepting themselves and coming out. It is invaluable, in fact when it comes to us feeling less alone and scared about everything.

  123. This speech was incredible. It was real, and you see how nervous she was. Thinking about how hard it was to go through the process of coming out, I can only imagine what it’s like when your in the spotlight. Some people give famous people shit for not coming out and representing us, but it must be insane as is to have the world constantly judging you. I felt really happy for her while watching this speech, because it felt like she was coming to terms with herself, and that is the best way to come out!
    also she’s on my list of 5, and that just made it wayyy more likely! (but still completely impossible)

  131. YOU GUYSSSSS!!! Is this the best or what?!

    I woke up at 4.30am, checked my phone, saw this Autostraddle post on Facebook and immediately woke my girlfriend up to tell her… and instead of being annoyed she squealed with excitement.

  133. I only got to watch the video this morning, and I have some words and feelings (beyond Inception related pick up lines).

    Dear Ellen,

    Your speech was beautiful and authentic and represent all of us who stood in front of our parents/friends/families/lovers and trembled a little. You were honest about your struggles, which made me feel less alone in mine.

    Every time when someone comes out in the news, I think about how my mother will see it, and maybe think that this is not such a bad thing. And that little piece of my family inside, that keeps me fearful in relationships and in life, also comes closer to fully accepting my queerness and all the love (both joyful and painful) that comes with it.

    I think about the courage it takes to stand in front of a room full of hundreds of people and television and know that the entire narrative around your life will change with three words “I am gay”.

    But not just your narrative, Ellen. The narrative around a lot of other people too. People who watch your movies, who today think a little differently about what it means to be gay, about what it means to be open, that maybe coming out will ease some of the suffering of their spirits.

    You are giving people hope, and you did so honestly, and in your own way. I respect you so much for that.

    So thank you, Ellen Page, for not giving us a glossy magazine interview or a quick soundbite but for you doing you, in the best way possible.

  139. I love reading all of these comments. I’ve been out for a few years and I’ve lost touch with how scary it was. How overwhelming it was to finally tell myself that my attraction to girls was real and wasn’t going away, and that I needed to become okay with this.

    It’s so amazing to think back to that feeling, and compare it to what I feel now. Coming out taught me to love and value myself in a way I didn’t know I could.

  140. SO HAPPY. My dream woman. So proud of her and her work. Great speech, it must have been so hard but so relieving for her to do. Now I need to go seduce her and host a shotgun wedding. My friends are there that work for HRC and they were the ones cheering in the audience when she came out. What an amazing day. I hope she can give more of a voice to the communities that HRC needs to improve on aiding etc. OUR HEROOOOO! <3

  142. Awkward inappropriate thought… I wonder how many queer ladies pleasured themselves to this knowledge last night…alone (or not) on v day.. hmmm

    Also. also. also. Can we please have a cabin at this A Camp named Ellen Page so I can say “I’ve been inside of Ellen Page”?

    • we’re celebrating that she came out.
      it’s actually really rare that i’ll write a coming out post about an actress who we didn’t know/think was gay prior to them coming out. the only person i can think of who i literally had no idea was maria bello, but i knew not much about her in general, honestly. regardless coming out is a thing to celebrate, and it’s a big deal, so DON’T RAIN ON OUR ELLEN PAGE PRIDE PARADE.

  152. YES! SO happy to finally see this after waiting 6 years. After seeing Juno my gaydar was piqued and after watching every interview with her that I could find I wasn’t sure if she was definitely gay, or if I just wanted her “on the team”.

    When the SNL sketch came out I basically took that as confirmation, but then of course there was no follow through to confirm the lack of sarcasm.

    Yay that she feels able to now!

  154. Anyone else harboring secret hopes that Ellen Page reads Autostraddle? I just hope she knows how excited we are for her, you know?

    Ellen Page, if you’re out there, you’re brave and awesome and we all love you in the nicest, most supportive, least creepy way possible. 😀

  155. Gosh. This is just so, so awesome. This is so awesome that I had to sign up just to share with you all my unbridled awesome-joy, because it is far too much for one person to contain and potentially would have ended up giving me happiness ulcers, or something.

    I wonder how many people sprinkled all around the world have spent the last 24 hours walking around grinning every time they remembered this happened. Count me among them. Probably we look weird and people are giving us wide berths. Whatever, haters. Our enigmatically beaming faces are the manifestations of this beautiful world progressing ever onwards, or something.

    #FEELINGS #FOURFORYOUELLENPAGE

  157. Actual email sent to me today: “Hey Ellen, one of my Facebook friends was commenting on Ellen Page coming out, then mentioned Ellen DeGeneres and concluded that he guesses all the Ellens are gay now. I ran through the inventory of Ellens I know (you) and agreed

  159. And I do believe the Inception fandom was just awoken by an onslaught of Ariadne/Mal…a universe to which I am now going to dive into and never resurface!

    (also, this is this lurker’s FIRST POST!!!!!)

    • Hah. Also though and interestingly, a study in Australia showed that same-sex attracted and queer youth were twice as likely to become pregnant here than their heterosexual peers.

      I remember hearing this and going ‘WHAT?’ but it makes sense that young people who might be just engaging with their sexuality perhaps might engage in sexual activity with boys as a) a way to prove to others they’re straight, b) a way to test or prove to themselves they’re straight, c) a coping mechanism for the swathe of sometimes depressive feelings that come with struggling to accept oneself or deal with bullying or perceived rejection etc or d) all of the above. Or perhaps we all just like sex more?

      Interesting though!

  162. just watched that speech for the 15th time.it still makes me smile the biggest smile.it’s still perfect.it’s gonna be my happy place for at least the next few month maybe even forever. I hope she knows what great thing she did. if this affecting me, a 23 year old out lesbian living a big city with a very decent queer community … what is this gonna do to a teenage girl living in the sticks who’s maybe not out or has very few people to turn or look up to. Thank you

  165. What I saw of the speech was brilliant, but I couldn’t watch the whole thing with her voice on the verge of tears the who time. It was killing me. I was really happy that she got a standing ovation when she said she was gay. I could tell from her reaction, and her whole speech, that she isn’t used to thinking of that as something she’d be applauded for. So that was probably a blessing for her in that moment.

    I’m also glad that she made the writer, or his employer at least, who critiqued her wardrobe feel like an asshole, to the extent that the article has disappeared.

    I don’t want to get into a whole thing about this, but I wonder if she was feeling pressure not just for being gay, but for not being out. The “lying by omission” line triggers me back to every conversation I’ve ever had, or in-defense-of-outing article I’ve ever read, about the ethics of pressuring people out of the closet. To be clear, I don’t think she came out because she was being pressured to. I think she came out to release all the pressures that being closet can put on your soul, of which guilt from your out peers can be one.

    Regardless, I’m glad that she’s freeing herself from all that. I just hope that she gets to continue doing good work and being praised for it.

  166. I’ve watched this video so many times in the past 3 days. Every queer person I’ve spoken to about it is as ecstatic as I am. I’ve made the mistake of sharing it with some straight friends though who just don’t get it (not all of them! but some).

    One reaction that I hate is ‘I don’t get why it’s such a big deal / why she was scared to come out’. Not only because it doesn’t take that much imagination or research to work out why someone would be scared to come out. But also because it shows such a failure to have faith in other people’s feelings. To empathise without question. We don’t need to justify our fear or hesitation or doubts or anxiety about coming out. Feeling them is enough. And every time someone (someone straight) doubts that coming out is hard, they devalue the experience of every lgbtq person who has struggled to come out in any way.

    Finally, I thought it was so rad that this was such an unequivocal coming out. It was incredible to see someone come out by saying ‘I am gay’, not by talking about a relationship. Not that those aren’t legitimate experiences or ways to talk about sexual identity, of course! But I think it is rare for a coming out to be so forthright and unambiguous – and certainly coming from the self in such a clear manner.

    • I’m pretty sick of those types of responses, because they’re usually code for “I’m uncomfortable thinking about gay people so I don’t want to hear about them coming out anymore.” But even when they’re not, they show a pretty shallow understanding of social dynamics. I got into it a bit on Facebook with a woman who had the nerve to say that she pities people who feel that they’re lying by omission and have to do a big coming-out announcement, because they don’t “understand” that all sexuality is natural and nobody’s business, so it doesn’t need to be talked about in public. Grr. Total blindness to your straight privilege much?

      My pat response from now on when someone asks “Why is this news?” will be that it will stop being news when the general public and/or media stop assuming that everyone is straight by default.

    • I’ve seen non-straight folks saying the same thing though, and that’s just as annoying. I mean, I get it, yeah. I don’t want coming out to be a big deal, and the gaydar’s been pinging for years. But that doesn’t mean folks should be completely invalidating her fears about coming out, whether they’re gay/queer or straight.

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