A few months ago Daniel Radcliffe said words to the effect that you must be doing something if people are speculating about your sexuality. However I doubt even he would have thought he’d be included on a list where the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) decided to ‘name and shame’ him on a homophobic list of gay people.
Radcliffe is straight – although a staunch gay ally – but he’s not the only inaccuracy on the stunningly shoddily researched piece.
Here is a translation of that list of celebrities who ‘shocked the world with their announcement of their sexuality’, via Gay Star News:
- Ricky Martin: “One of the first who announced their sexuality.”
Cameron Diaz: “Stated that she prefers making love to women even though she was in a relationship with Justin Timberlake. She doesn’t mind making love to a man but prefers having a long-term relationship with a woman.”
Jodie Foster: “Got married to her partner, the photographer Alexandra Hedison, lately.”
Daniel Radcliffe: “Harry Potter’s actor, announced his sexuality.”
Lindsay Lohan: “Has previously announced her homosexuality. She was engaged to Samantha Ronson and they were planning to get married but they broke up before marriage.”
Ellen DeGeneres: ‘The star and famous TV presenter preferred to get married to her partner Portia De Rossi and they have been living together for a couple of years.”
Elton John: “The global musician has not just announced his sexuality, but got married and wore a wedding dress from his boyfriend David Furnish and had kids using surrogacy.”
Neil Patrick Harris: “His boyfriend and him had twins the same way as Elton.”
It won’t surprise many of you that Cameron Diaz never said she preferred being in long-term relationships with women (although she has said she’s bisexual), while Lohan isn’t exclusively homosexual, and Ricky Martin didn’t come out officially until 2010. And while Elton John has worn dresses to parties, he didn’t put one on for either his civil partnership or his wedding to David Furnish.
MBC is a free-to-air satellite broadcasting company located in Dubai, which reaches around 150 million Arabic speakers in various countries around the world.
The network has previously seemed relatively neutral on gay issues, although it seems this is evidence of a more negative approach, which comes at a time of increasingly hardline actions against LGBTI people in several Arabic-speaking nations.
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