# Are you sitting down? Barry Manilow MIGHT BE GAY. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 9, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217 "2015-04-09T15:47:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217/141 "2017-04-22T08:55:28Z")
I can’t say I’ve paid any more attention to Manilow than I’ve had to, but my wife is a big fan of his, and she’s known forever that he’s gay. ETA: > [@Enuma\_Elish](#): > > His music has always sucked, unless you were a 50 year-old lady, living alone with cats Nonsense! My wife is a 50-something lady who lives with me and our son, and cats. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217/142 "2017-04-22T14:23:45Z")
I’ve heard about Manilow being gay since his first LP. I never respected the whole “Linda Allen” relationship. It’s okay to be gay, not okay to pretend to be straight. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217/143 "2017-04-22T17:17:58Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > It’s okay to be gay, not okay to pretend to be straight. NOW, yes. And even that is marginally a yes, given that the current climate of openness and tolerance isn’t geographically universal, even in the USA or Europe. But THEN? It’s a bad thing for people to be lying to their wives/husbands about their real orientation, but there was a time not very long ago (within my own lifetime, and I’m only mid-40s) when it was a matter of life and death, or freedom and incarceration, or sanity and lobotomy. No, it wasn’t a GOOD thing, but it was a necessary thing for a very long time, which is why there’s an air of sympathy about it when elderly men and women who’ve been married and lying to their spouses for 40 or 50 years actually publicly come out today. The window on that is closing, though. I give it another 20 years before the youths of elderly people in the 2030s start creeping into the era of tolerance (call it mid-1990s or early 2000s) and the necessity of that kind of deception isn’t recognized anymore. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217/144 "2017-04-22T17:21:34Z")
And I’m not denying that it’s a difficult situation to deal with. The Netflix series Grace & Frankie (starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Sam Watterston and Martin Sheen) explores this and it’s explicitly acknowledged that the late-life coming-out and admission of a 20-year affair between Watterston and Sheen’s characters, while garnering some sympathy because of the necessity of closeting all those years, is HARD to deal with for everyone, the (now ex-)wives, the adult kids, their old friends, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217/145 "2017-04-23T06:40:27Z")
[/QUOTE] Nonsense! My wife is a 50-something lady who lives with me and our son, and cats. 🙂 [/QUOTE] My abject apologies to you and yours. I should have learned long ago to not disparage cat-lovers. (Even though several relatives are insane cat-lovers … including my niece, who - in spite of her kids having allergies to cat dander/hair - insists on having multiple cats. SIGH) I also apologize for being a luddite who can’t seem to quote someone without their name being cut off … or maybe its the beer … This post is in response to RTFirefly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-sitting-down-barry-manilow-might-be-gay/717217.md?page=7)