Darren was interviewed by Greg - part 2

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Singer Darren Hayes: "Nobody outed me...
By Greg Hernandez on September 27, 2007 9:00 AM

This is the second and final part of an interview I had with singer Darren Hayes this month. In part one, we talked about his new album and a well-publicized restaurant altercation that he is now eager to put past him.
On the day that we spoke, Hayes had attended a civil partnership ceremony of two friends which he said was "beautiful" and he was also a guest at Elton John's wedding to David Furnish: "It was a big deal because Elton is such a famous perspon and it was an important moment. It was a very powerful statement to make, soemeone who had been knighted by the Queen and an official card carrying homo. I loved it!”
As far as the raging debate over same-sex marriage in the U.S., Hayes says: "Obviously it's a divided issue. There’s so many people in the country, so many opinions. The land mass is as big as Europe, I think it's a miracle that America manages to be so cohesive. England really surprised me, In terms of social reform, medical care and civil partnerships, it is quite forward thinking. I think Australia and America will catch up."
Hayes entered into a civil partnership with his boyfriend of three years, Richard Cullen, on June 19, 2006 in London and announced it on his official website the next month:
"What I'm most of proud of is I had nothing to promote and nobody outed me. I lived in America for seven years and I adore the country. But it can be quite aggressive the way people are outed, people like Lance Bass, who were dragged out of the closet. For me, it was a very conscious decision that I made in a very calm and sort of measured state of mind."
“I think we made a decision in our relationship to humanize it. We werern't going to be this hidden couple. I talk about Richard pretty openly. If I attend events, sometimes he's there. It's a fine line that we try to walk. Like any relationship, he is a part of me and a part of everything I do."

Still, there was concern over how being an out gay man would affect his music career.
"Even though I never lied about it, there was a concern that some of my female fans would feel that I fooled them or maybe they’d feel like they'd been lied to which wasn't the case., But as a gay man, there's always that disappointment a woman in your life feels when you come out, a woman who had a crush on you, I have such a strong connection to my audience, my female audience, I thought, 'This is going to be interesting.' I was overwhelmed by the positivity, I think that was due to the fact that I never lied.”
“I don't see myself as a gay artist at all. I see myself as a human being. On the surface, I don't think my marriage or being gay reeally colors my music. But being out and being in a beautful relationship has made me feel better about myself. What that has done is made me brave in every area of my life. From launching my own label, making a double album. It's made me really brave and i think that kind of shows in the music that I’'m making.”

Darren was interviewed by Greg - part 1

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My chat w/Darren Hayes...(Pt. 1)
By Greg Hernandez on September 26, 2007 3:00 PM

Singer Darren Hayes called me from London (he lives in the Notting Hill part of the city) recently and we had a good gab about his music, being an out performer, and about the alleged the incident in a restaurant where he was accused of saying racially abusive things to a door person.
We spoke prior to police recommending earlier this week that no formal charges be filed and that there was no racist undertone to the July 22 incident.
"I could never think, let alone utter a racist remark. It's just not who I am," Hayes said. "As a gay man, I find the notion of discriminating against a human being because of race, gender or sexuality to be abhorrent. It goes against everything I have stood for."
An altercation did take place at the restaurant and Hayes received a warning. The singer says the racial element "was a horrible thing to be accused of and I want to thank all of my friends, family and fans for giving me the benefit of the doubt. The experience has been frustrating and at times made me very sad, but through it all I have to say I support the legal system and our right of protection under the law. I'm glad the truth is out there. I just want to concentrate on my music now.”
Hayes was set to kick off his latest tour in Scotland this week, play in London Oct. 3 then play in his native Australia until Oct. 25 before heading to the U.S. for six weeks of promotion. He has not done a full-scale concert in the states in seven years and hopes to do some shows next year.

The 35-year-old Australian singer-songwriter debuted in 1996 as the frontman and singer of the pop duo Savage Garden which had the hots "I Want You", "To the Moon and Back," "Truly Madly Deeply," "I Knew I Loved You" and "The Animal Song." Savage Garden sold more than 23 million albums worldwide before parting ways in 2001.
"It would've been easier to stay in the band or keep the name, I chose a more difficult path," he says.
Hayes released his first solo album, "Spin" in 2002. After his second solo album didn't meet expectations, Hayes left his record label to form one of his own: Powdered Sugar.
Now he is doing things on his own terms which he said is made clear with his new album, "This Delicate Thing We've Made." He says it's his most personal collection of songs - ever.
“I love the record in general because it's been the result of a lot of artistic struggle. I fought realy hard to be in this place in my career, to be an honest person and someone who makes reocrds that are exactly the way I want them to be, regardless of marketing etc."
"I think it's an album in the old sense, when a collection of songs had a purpose. It's not a reaction to what is happening to radio, it's endearingly crafted and put together and it offers something to people who think maybe magic is missing from records today.”
TOMORROW: In part 2 of our interview, Darren tells us about coming out and how he feared it would hurt his career and some other things I'll have to leave you in suspense about...

Darren Hayes - interview on The Advocate

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Darren Hayes Interview - April 2007

The Advocate "Truly Madly Gay"
by Michael Giltz

For years, the lead singer of the band Savage Garden wasn't just in the closet, he was in denial. Now the international pop star is remarried (this time to a man) and staging his musical comeback. Darren Hayes is finally ready to talk.

Almost everyone seems to have known pop star Darren Hayes was gay before he did. "It's weird, because I can say to you that at the age of 11, I was [thinking], 'Dear God, please don't make me gay,' says Hayes. "But those words never came out of my mouth. And if they didn't come out of my mouth, they weren't real."

What was real was a lifetime of self-denial. Hayes left that scared little boy behind, married his best friend, became one half of the massively successful Australian duo Savage Garden, enjoyed hit records and sold-out shows, and then--and only then--finally admitted that his lifelong attraction to men and those intense crushes actually meant something.

Hayes turns 35 on May 8, celebrates the first anniversary of his marriage to animator and director Richard Cullen on June 19, and releases his third solo album, 'This Delicate Thing We've Made' in August on Powdered Sugar, his own independent record label.

The 25-track double CD set, inspired in part by Kate Bush's masterpiece 'Hounds of Love', dives into his childhood, teen years, struggles with his sexuality, loneliness, and the joys of making a real relationship work. In other words, it has "dodgy" written all over it.

Despite a relatively mild media profile, Savage Garden was once more than legit, selling over 23 million albums around the world in the late 1990s, thanks primarily to two monster hits that Hayes affectionately calls "wedding songs." "Truly Madly Deeply" and "I Knew I Loved You" spent a combined 247 weeks on the adult contemporary charts. "I Knew" topped the AC charts for 17 weeks; each song set a new record for its length of time on the charts.

Chuck Taylor, a senior correspondent for Billboard and a longtime Hayes supporter, says the time is ripe for a comeback. "I think his voice is so recognizable, and those two songs...for two years they didn't leave the airwaves," says Taylor.

Like Carole King's 'Tapestry' and David Gray's 'White Ladder', 'This Delicate Thing We've Made' has the feel of something made for the sheer love of it, without any consideration for radio play or fitting into formats or pleasing a major label. And the result is music that's stirringly universal and joyful, even if the memories they stir up for Hayes are sometimes sad. "I remember the first person who called me gay in Australia," says Hayes, sitting on a couch in his living room with his dog Waldo at his feet. "I would have been 11 and these two new boys came to school and one of them just didn't like me. The other kid's name was Steven, and I had a massive crush on him and Steven thought I was the bee's knees and the other guy just thought, 'Can't you see he's a faggot?' Of course, I had no idea. I thought everyone wanted to be Wonder Woman."

So even though his family wasn't religious, Hayes prayed to God that he wouldn't turn out to be gay and then locked all those thoughts away.

"First of all, it took me a long time to even accept that I was gay," says Hayes. "And then it took me a long time to be happy that I was gay. There were two phases--a phase of total denial, just thinking, 'I'm sure everybody thought that Dirk Benedict was attractive.' But that was as a child. I literally filed that into the back of my mind as something you don't talk about. And because I'm an emotional person and because I'm a romantic, I really did fall in love with girls."

One girl in particular--Colby Taylor, who became Hayes's wife--circled an ad for a band looking for a lead singer. And that led to Daniel Jones, the other principal of Savage Garden.

The cover band they initially performed in broke up, leading the two to form their own duo, named after a passage from Anne Rice's novel, "The Vampire Lestat". In 1997, Hayes married Colby, and Savage Garden's first single, "I Want You," hit the charts, becoming the best-selling singlein Australia that year and a top 5 U.S. hit.

It was then that Leonie Messer--Hayes's publicist and/or manager for about a decade and best friend--asked the question Hayes had refused to ask himself. "She sat me down in her office and she said, 'Are you gay?' I was like, 'Are you gay? I'm married!' She said, 'Are you gay?' I said, 'OK, first of all, I'm offended by that accusation. But what makes you say that?' "She said, 'Because every time [a certain employee] walks into the room, you blush.' And I had the most massive crush on this man. It was extreme. It was so Sybil in that I had literally compartmentalized my sexuality, all right? My secret feelings for men were in this drawer in my head. And I never shared them with anybody. Including myself. I'd never touched a boy. I'd never kissed a boy. I'd never said anything. I'm 23, 24 years of age. We're successful, number 1s in America, and I'm now travelling around the world, and these crushes on men are getting more and more intense," says Hayes.

Daniel Jones--"one of the straightest guys you'll ever meet," Hayes says--even opened the door. "I remember Daniel giving me that wonderful permission conversation. You know, 'If you were gay, that would be OK.'"

So Hayes told his wife and family he was struggling with this, and they went to a Christian counselor (sessions were free and anonymous) for a year. Keep in mind, this is the same time Savage Garden is in the midst of becoming one of the most successful bands in the world. Finally, Hayes took a different step.

"We agreed to seperate," he says. "The idea was 'Go to New York and see if you can be gay.' [Colby's] reasoning at the time was 'I don't think you are, but I love you, and you need to do this.' So it was awful. It's like that moment in a bad relationship movie where they take a break, and you know breaks always mean the end. But I think both of us hoped, thought, we'll be together. I was just about to come home when I met someone and I had a relationship. I remember calling her up and saying, 'I think I'm gay.' And that was the end." Or, rather, the beginning. Hayes's first boyfriend was sweet and beautiful. "But it was never going to work," Hayes says. "I was running away from Australia, fame, a marriage, all that stuff. But it was beautiful. It was such a caring, sweet, and great way to be gay. I sort of had a crash course in it, really."

He came out to Jones in 1997 and his other bandmates in1998. "When I came out, I came out to everybody I knew. I remember running down [the aisle of] a Boeing 747 telling the whole band, 'Guess what? I'm gay. I'm gay! I'm gay!'"

Hayes never worried about being recognized when hitting the bars or going out on dates. He never got burned publicly, even though he was dating men in New York and later in San Francisco.

"I was throwing myself at the wrong men," he says. "I dated a succession of men who were my father. I just dated these emotionally abusive, overpowering, gruff men who took care of me from a parental sense, in a stern kind of sense, but were not emotional, were never demonstrative."

For reasons they rarely discuss, Savage Garden broke up after two albums. Hayes's marriage was over, his love life was lack luster, and his first solo album--2002's 'Spin'--made little impression.

In 2004, he dove into darker waters with 'The Tension and the Spark', a quiet, sad record that obliquely tackled his struggles with being gay as well as a childhood overshadowed by his father's physical abuse of his mother. Hayes's brother, Peter, like his father, is still hurt that the singer went public with these revelations.

Hayes insists that by this point everyone at his record label, Columbia, knew he was gay and it was never a problem. "You hear these horror stories, but they were actually really beautiful to me," he says. "When I came out, Donny [then-lable head Don Ienner] just changed from shaking my hand to kissing me on the cheek when he met me."

At the time, Hayes wasn't completely comfortable with being gay, and he was also coming out about his painful childhood. "I believe Darren had a lot of demons at work," says Billboard's Taylor, "from his childhood all the way through the time he became a public figure. I think coming out was the least of his concerns. He had to make peace with a lot of issues inside himself." Yet dealing with his sexuality wasn't about to take a backseat.

Hayes was promoting 'The Tension and the Spark' on a TV show in the United Kingdom called 'Popworld', known for bringing on celebrities and treating them rudely. "It's like Perez Hilton on TV," Hayes explains.

"So this guy on camera says, 'So you're obviously gay; why didn't you ever come out?'" Hayes says. "The cameras are rolling. I just went, 'Oh, you want to talk about my sex life? I'm really happy to talk about my sex life. I'm more of a top. And I really, really like the missionary position. In fact, would you like me to show you how I fuck?' I was so aggressive. I was like Madonna on David Letterman when she was swearing. The producers were like, 'Cut! Cut! Cut!' I just sat there really defiantly. Everyone said, 'We're really, really sorry.' I was icy; I was just icy. "When the interview [was over] I just said to the journalist, who was an openly gay man [cohost Simon Amstell], "That was really uncool. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm gay. It's no secret that I'm gay. I just don't promote it in my work. And that was really fucking uncool.'

"And I got up and left. I got into the [car] and I slumped down into my seat and I just... broke down. That was the moment where I just thought, 'OK, this is a problem now. This has become a problem. And I felt so powerless. And I thought, I have nothing to be ashamed of. It was at that point I went, I'm going to come out. I need to come out."

And Hayes did finally come out officially last July, quietly, modestly, on his Web site, telling his fans that he had married his boyfriend of two years after entering a civil partership, the marriage-like union for gay couples in the United Kingdom.

"We got married in this back garden," says Hayes. "It was a construction site at the time. We were in a circle holding hands and I was holding Richard's hand and my mom was there and my sister was there and it was so lovely. I can't stress how important it is to my view of liking myself to be able to be

legitimized. You can say it's just a bit of paper, but it's so much more than that. To be able to stand up in front of your community, the people that you respect and love, and become valid in society's eyes it is like this safety net in your relationship. Thank God I fell in love with a Brit and I'm in a country where I can be respected."

Now his music is poised to receive more respect than ever before too. One song on 'This Delicate Thing We've Made' has already been released to clubs under a pseudonym. Hayes has been performing intimate club dates around the world to reach out to his fan base and sow excitement for the new album. Cullen and others are working on a dozen or so animated shorts that will serve as music videos and be spread via the Web. Hayes will license the music to films and TV and even ads--any way to get the music out.

He's proud he waited to come out when he was happy about it and not in the midst of promoting a book or CD or other project. "In a lot of ways, there was a feeling that I didn't feel authentic," says Hayes. "There was this adoration that I received, but there was always this trapdoor underneath it where I would think, 'Would these people love me even, even if I was gay?' Which is a really horrible thing to think about yourself--to feel that you're fraudulent. Even though I never lied about it. And I'm so, so glad I didn't."

Going public with his sexuality when was "unsuccessful in gay relationships" was admittedly unappealing, says Hayes: "Hey, watch me fail at love! Please document this!" Now he's ready to document the happiest stage of his life. "You know what I'm really proud of? There's not just sadness [on this album]. There's joy, like the song 'Casey,', for example. It's about my sister. There's a line where I say, 'She's coming to get me, she's coming to rescue me.' That was the relationship I had with her."

As for the track, "How to Build a Time Machine," Hayes says, "It's just a tool for me to say, if I could go back, I would bring some joy forward. I lost a bit of that for a while there in my life. I think Richard helped me find that again. The idea of waking up and being excited about your day? I haven't felt that for so long. It's as simple as having one part of my life solid. If this record doesn't work, I will survive. I have a life and it's OK. Talking about your childhood and being gay, it's really hard to do if the only person you have to console yourself is yourself."

Wentworth Miller - Out in the City

Interview With Eric Millegan

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Interview With Eric Millegan
by Jenny Sherwin, February 27, 2007

Sporting boyish good looks and disarming talent, Eric Millegan has quickly becoming one of TV's hottest character actors. As Dr. Zack Addy on Fox's Bones, Millegan dons a lab coat and sports a vocabulary that gives Stephen Hawking a run for the money. In doing so, he has quite possibly earned the title of prime time TV's sexiest geek.

But beyond his acting chops, Eric Millegan is a gay actor who was out long before T.R. Knight or Neil Patrick Harris. He heads the growing list of prime time actors who are openly gay and play straight characters who American viewers love just the same. AfterElton.com recently talked with him about his decision to be openly gay, his take on the Isaiah Washington controversy and which gay actor he'd like to work with.

AfterElton.com: You've been out professionally for quite some time. When did you make that decision and why?
Eric Millegan: I did a movie called On_Line in which I played a gay role. It went to Sundance in 2002. There's a gay brunch there, and the On_Line people wanted to send me. I knew that they were going to ask if I was gay, and I thought, "Yeah, that's fine. I'll do that." The Advocate and Out magazine interviewed me then, and Out named me Hottest Up and Coming Gay Actor of 2003.

AE: Were you out to your friends and family at that time?
EM: I came out to myself and the people around me in 1993. I had a summer stock job and I fell in love with a guy, but I still didn't consider myself gay. I thought I was just in love with him. But he really broke my heart and so I thought to myself, "Well, maybe you are gay."

AE: Was there ever a time that you regretted coming out?
EM: No. It feels totally great to be out. When I came to Los Angeles, people told me to lie about my sexual orientation and lie about my age, and I thought, "Nope. I'm going to be open about my sexual orientation."
It felt so great to get this job playing a straight character knowing that I was totally open about being gay. If I had tried to be closeted, I always would have thought I only got the job because I was in the closet. I'm on a TV show; people know I'm gay; people know I have a partner; and I don't feel like my career is being affected.

AE: Are there any openly gay actors who inspired you?
EM: I'm not sure if Nathan Lane had come out yet, but Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, of course. Will & Grace was already popular so there was a gay character on a mainstream show. There were certainly people out. But you know what it really was … I remember going to my agent and asking, "Is this going to be OK?"
And he said, "I don't think that your being out is going to change anything because of the kinds of roles you're going to play," because I get the quirky kind of character roles as opposed to, say, action hero. If he had said, "Yeah, it is a problem," then maybe I would have stayed closeted, so my agent definitely made a difference with that.

AE: It seems like your experience as a gay actor has been pretty positive. Do you think there is a still a bias against openly gay actors in Hollywood?
EM: I'm having a great time doing Bones, and I feel very grateful that I can be out and have a TV show and have the success that I'm having. But I hadn't really been tested before I came out. I always wondered: What if someone had come up to me and said, "OK, we're going to give you this major film role; you're going to get paid five million dollars, but we need you to be closeted." Would I have been able to have principles like I've had if the stakes were higher? Would I have had the guts to come out? I don't know. It's easier to have principles when it's not hurting your career so much.

AE: As an actor and a celebrity, you're used to being in the public eye. How much info about your private life do you think fans deserve to know about? Is it fair for the general public to want to know which celebrities are gay?
EM: I think it's a private and personal situation, and I don't know how I feel about people going out of their way to out people who are closeted. I certainly think it's just better if you're out so you can end that and you don't have to deal with rumors. I think if I was in the closet, people would already be speculating about me. One good thing about being out is that you can just end that. You don't have to deal with the rumors.

AE: Still, many actors have been outed professionally … Lance Bass and Neil Patrick Harris, fairly recently. What's your stance on outing?
EM: I do get a little pissed off at people being closeted because they think it's going to help their career. Somebody who I knew in New York who everybody knows is gay, and who has a boyfriend, did some interviews where he was talking about how he knew if a girl was right for him. I was kind of pissed because you don't have to do that. You don't have to be closeted for your career.

AE: Have other gay actors or gay fans spoken with you about whether or not they should come out?
EM: Yes. I get emails from people who tell me, "You've really inspired me because you're out there as a TV actor and you're openly gay."

AE: Do you find that the response from your homosexual fans has been greater since you've been openly gay? 
EM: I definitely have gay fans. I have a guestbook on my website, and I get posts from gay men all over the world. I can't believe it, but Bones is in Croatia, France, Hungary ? and so many of my posts are from overseas. I get a lot of posts and emails from people who say it means a lot to them that I'm out. They saw it online that I'm gay and then they started watching Bones, which is cool.

AE: What about your straight fans?
EM: The response I get is great. I get emails from women even though I'm openly gay, so I don't think the fantasy is ruined. I've read responses from fans online where they say, "I know he's gay but it doesn't change the fact that I think he's really cute," and "I don't care if he's gay; I still want to have his children."

AE: You've played quite a few gay characters. As a gay actor, do you find that your gay fans react with the same enthusiasm when you're playing a straight character?
EM: I haven't experienced that. I've done interviews with a lot of gay magazines and online publications, so the gay people definitely know I'm gay. I don't think that playing a straight character affects that in any way. I've seen on the internet where sites have listed that I'm not playing a gay character but I'm openly gay so they recommend that gay people watch Bones. That's the kind of gay support that I've seen. When they list what gay people should watch they say, "Watch Bones because of the gay actor."

AE: Both Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and T.R. Knight (Grey's Anatomy) play heterosexual characters with romantic lives. Do you think mainstream America is finally getting past the idea that gay men can play straight romantic roles?
EM: Grey's Anatomy's ratings certainly haven't dropped. [Laughs.] If I was not out right now, I would look at T.R. and Neil and think, "It's safe; the waters have been tested and it's safe," and I'd be coming out now if I wasn't already. I hope a young actor in New York or in Los Angeles will look at all three of us and think, "Wow ? I do not have to lie to get work." After all, there are straight actors who are unemployed too.

AE: Is it difficult for you in any way to play straight roles? Do you feel any less comfortable doing love scenes with women? 
EM: No. I've had more chances to play opposite women since I came out.

AE: What's your take on the Isaiah Washington controversy? Have you ever encountered a situation like that and could you work with a fellow cast member making inflammatory anti-gay remarks on the set?
EM: I've really never had that experience. In New York I was in the theater, which is kind of an insular environment. I haven't had to deal with any slurs or anything like that. My cast knows I'm gay and they don't have a problem with it, and my boss doesn't have a problem with it and he knows. No one's bothering me on the set or calling me names.
I'm grateful to be open about my life [and to] have such a great job and a great career, and I'm thankful to be working with such a good cast who are very supportive of each other and are really great actors. We all like to work together and have a great time. I know that not all experiences are like that, and I feel very blessed to be to be working with them.

AE: Your character on Bones recently got a much-needed makeover. As a fabulous gay man, do you ever feel like you'd like to kick his fashion sense up a notch?
EM: Yes! I'm trapped in that lab coat a lot. I actually wear some pretty cool clothes under the lab coat but you can't really see them.

AE. Are you more at home in New York or Los Angeles?
EM: I like L.A. but I do miss New York. I thought I would spend the rest of my life in New York so this is an exciting time that I didn't see coming. I told my agent when I was thinking about coming to L.A.: "If you're going to get me auditions then I'll come out. But if I'm not going to get auditions and I'm going to be miserable, I'd much rather be miserable in New York than in L.A. "But I like it here. I like the open space and how much more room I have. And having a car is kind of cool."

AE: How do you find that the gay scenes differ in both cities?
EM: I'm not really a big club guy. When I first came out, I used to go to clubs in New York. One thing that's different is that when I'm doing musical theater in New York, I feel much more like I'm in a gay environment. I [am] used to working with a lot more gay people. I think pretty much everyone on the set of Bones is straight.

AE: Do you find you go out less since you and your partner got together?
EM: That's right. I've known him 13 years, but we weren't a committed couple at first. Once we settled down about nine years ago, I stopped really going to bars. I really enjoy being at home with him.

AE: Last question. If you could play opposite any male actor in the next hottest gay thing since Brokeback Mountain, who would you pick?
EM: I've always had a long-standing crush on Nathan Lane, but I don't know that we'd be good at doing Brokeback Mountain.

AE: Well, maybe you could do Brokeback Broadway?
EM: [Laughs.] This is the kind of question you ask me that two hours after the interview I have a good answer for. I think T.R. Knight is cute, and one of the people on my website message board recently said, "I'm a woman and I have no problem with [Eric] being gay and as a matter of fact, I fantasize about Eric and T.R. Knight being together." So, I wouldn't mind doing something with him.

Bones airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. EST on Fox. New episodes return on March 14, 2007, or catch previous episodes on Fox On Demand.