Jonathan Knight: No More Games

The New Kids On The Block singer recently opened up to Gay Times, in which he talks about being outed by popstar and former beard, Tiffany. ”I felt stupid having to make a public statement,” he says in the new issue. “Even when the band got back together in 2008, New Kids fans knew I was gay. Everyone did.”
While he may have lived an open life, it wasn’t quite public knowledge. And former outing king, Perez Hilton, was one of the ones that was determined to break the news.
“Perez tried to out me many times and I hate that guy for doing that. I was already gay and living a gay lifestyle but he wanted me to talk about it. Why? My brother and the rest of the guys don’t go on interviews saying ‘I’m straight” etc. so why do I need to just because I’m gay? People like him want me to talk about it to make themselves feel better. They think ‘I’m gay so I want to make sure everybody knows I’m not the only one out there.’ I hate that.”

Queerty.

Funny that Queerty forgets to mention somewhere else that kept outing Jonathan... Queerty!
Please accept our sincerest hypocrisy etc etc.

In October 2010, Perez Hilton told Ellen he was going to stop outing celebrities; "Over the last two weeks I have been doing everything I can to bring awareness to the teen suicides and gay bullying. In doing so, a lot of people have called me a hypocrite and a bully myself and a big one... From now on I really want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem."
One upshot of this was there were less boring articles in the media repeating the same tired old arguments about "the ethics of outing".
And, as he'd predicted, the number of visitors to his new kinder, gentler site dropped.
Perez Hilton's best-known "scalps" included Lance Bass, Anderson Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris, and, but of course, Jonathan Knight - all have since come out.

PS Yes, I know Fagburn may have also "suggested" various closeted people are homosexual, so don't write in. 

Pop: Gay Kids On The Block

In the wake of Jonathan Knight becoming the new gay kid on the block, Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon wonders aloud; 'Why Girls Like Gay Heartthrobs'.
It's a typical Salon piece - advancing an argument that sounds counterintuitive in an article that's not completely convincing.
"When those first stirrings of attraction kick in, young girls are generally not going to go for a boy who looks like he really, really wants to touch them in the bathing suit area. They're going to be for the boy who is handsome, sweet and eminently safe, the one of whom she can say, as Tiffany has of Knight, We used to do facials together' (and not mean it as a dirty joke)."
This is all well-known, and hardly revelatory - see the title of Lisa Simpson's favourite magazine (above), Non-Threatening Boys, or Allison Pearson's recent book about growing up as a David Cassidy fan, I Think I Love You.
The point was argued best by Sheryl Garratt in her brilliant essay, All Of Us Love All Of You;
"Women seem far more excited by slim, unthreatening, baby-faced types who act vulnerable and who resemble them. Androgyny is what they want: men they can dress like and identify with, as well as drool over. With so few women performers to use as models, perhaps girlish boys are the next best thing...
"A touch of homosexuality seems to enhance a male star's popularity with women, in fact - especially if it is carefully denied elsewhere."

(Read All Of Us Love All Of You here. Pages 138-151)

Thought For The Day: Jonathan Knight

"Apparently the pre-requisite to being a gay public figure is to appear on the cover of a magazine with the caption ‘I am gay’. I apologize for not doing so if this is what was expected! My belief is that you live your life by example, and not by a caption on a magazine."

Jonathan Knight, Ex-New Kid On The Block, posting on the NKOTB blog; after being inadvertedly "outed" (or not) by ex-beard girlfriend Tiffany on a US talkshow. Via Entertainment Weekly.