AndyForsyth said:

When is the draw mate?

"You obviously have been to Brighton - MB"

Michael Barrymore Comes Out
September, 1995

The
developing story of Michael Barrymore's coming out as a gay man has
dominated the popular press this last week, understandably, as a very
famous public image has been peeled aside to reveal an unexpected
private life. The tabloids who righteously sniff out lies and hypocrisy
are in this case somewhat at a loss because Barrymore can't be accused
of lying - not any more - after all it's he who is doing the outing and
not them. Also, they must tread carefully with the nation's affections
for a uniquely popular entertainer.

The
tabloids began the week in the role of unctuous, marriage-guidance
counsellors, advising their client to come clean - "own up Michael:
you'll feel better and we'll forgive" sort of thing. Then when they
heard he had told the truth, although not to them but to a midnight
radio show - and an avowedly gay one at that - the only cliché they
could then come up with was to accuse Barrymore of "flaunting" his
gayness. I smell professional jealousy.

In
truth, Michael Barrymore's story is less sensational than it appears.
Any lesbian and gay man will recognise most of it, from their own
experience.

Coming Out goes by stages - short
or protracted, depending on your circumstances and your temperament .
The older though not necessarily wiser you are, the more tentative the
later stages of coming out may be. I was 49 when I finally did it. Nigel
Hawthorne, last year, was 65. Michael Barrymore is 43. These days, many
young people take advantage of the increasingly relaxed view that
society by and large takes of the lesbians and gays in its midst and are
happy at the outset of their adult life to be honest about their
homosexuality. Some even come out to their parents and schoolfriends at
an age when the law would imprison them if they ever actually made love
to someone of the same gender.

You begin by
coming out to yourself, accepting that despite society's
near-overwhelming pressure on you to conform to the heterosexual
pattern, you know you have always been gay and you want to live as
nature and a little bit of nurture intended you to. The next stage, as
your confidence increases, will be to tell someone else - from your
friends, your family and, if you are at work, your colleagues, employer
or employees. The journey, not always as painful as you fear, will not
be complete, however, until there is no one in the world, whom you know
or whom you are to meet, to whom you would ever lie.

If
you are in the public eye, if you depend on the approval or the votes
of strangers for a living - your coming out has an extra step to go. If
honesty is your aim, you may no longer prevaricate with the public or
the self-appointed surrogates of public opinion and a press statement or
interview is almost obligatory to end the matter.

This
need not be a lonely journey. En route, you can find growing numbers to
support you. You read about famous gays past and present and take
comfort from their example. There are Lesbian and Gay Helplines. If you
are lucky, particularly if you live in a big city, you meet gay people
and make friends with some of them. They tell you their coming out
stories.

That's why Michael Barrymore, the
master of the spontaneous this week, found it so congenial, so easy and
so inevitable to take to the stage in an East End gay pub and tell the
ecstatic audience that he was one of them. And again, his
spur-of-the-moment decision to invite himself on the gay radio programme
where he spoke candidly to the few thousand who were tuned in at 1.00
am, confirms that he has found new friends. The straight media may be
baffled but gays understand. Coming out, whatever your age, is to start a
new life, and to help you celebrate there are the open arms of
travelers who have already arrived.

If it feels like that to you Michael, "Welcome".