Legendary actor Billy Dee Williams is embracing the decades-worth of gay rumors against him, claiming, “I’ve been called a ‘Closet Queen.'”
Billy Dee Williams, who gained notoriety as “Lando Calrissian” in the original ‘Star Wars‘ trilogy, admits that he never cared too much about all of the rumors that he was gay back in the 70s.
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Recently, Williams spoke with Page Six about the infamous rumors about his sexuality that could have ruined his career at the time. Williams laughed them off and said, “I’ve been called a ‘Closet Queen.’ But, I don’t pay much attention to any of that.”
Williams noted that he has always been comfortable hanging around members of the LGBTQIA+ community and has even attended secret gay parties in the Metropolitan Opera’s basement. He said, “It all seemed very normal to me. I was around it all of my life, so I never really gave it much thought.”
Billy Dee Williams previously spoke about his sexuality in November 2019 and left fans questioning if he was gender fluid. At the time, Williams told Esquire, “I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine. I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.”
Williams quickly clarified his comments and told The Undefeated that he hadn’t even heard of the term before his comments in the Esquire interview. He said, “Well, first of all, I asked last night. I said, ‘What the hell is gender fluid?’ That’s a whole new term.”
The now 86-year-old actor continued, “But what I was talking about was about men getting in touch with their softer side of themselves.”
He added, “There’s a phrase that was coined by Carl G. Jung, who was a psychiatrist, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and they had a splitting of the ways because they had different ideas about the … what do you call it? Consciousness. Unconscious. It’s collective unconsciousness. But he coined a phrase that’s, ‘Anima animus.’ And anima means that is the female counterpart of the male self, and the animus is the male counterpart of the female.”
Williams continued, “So, that’s what I was referring to. I was talking about men getting in touch with the female side of themselves. I wasn’t talking about sex, I wasn’t talking about being gay or straight. People should read [Jung]. I mean, it would be an interesting education for a lot of people.”
He again clarified that he wasn’t gay, affirming, “No, no, no, I’m not gay — by any stretch of the imagination. Not that I have anything against gay people. But personally? Not gay.”
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