Sean Hayes on his sexuality: 'I am who I am'

Former "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes never really kept his sexuality a secret, but he also never really felt a need to share it with the world.

That's changing (somewhat) in Hayes' first interview with The Advocate, in which he both confirms that he's gay -- "I am who I am. I was never in, as they say. Never" -- and also bristles a little at the fact that the question still has to be asked.

"I believe that nobody owes anything to anybody," Hayes tells the magazine. "Nobody owes anything to anybody. You are your authentic self to whom and when you choose to be, and if you don't know somebody, then why would you explain to them how you live your life?"

Hayes is about to make his Broadway debut opposite Kristen Chenoweth in a revival of "Promises, Promises," a 1968 musical with songs by Burt Bacharach that's based on Billy Wilder's movie "The Apartment." That's presumably part of his motivation for sitting down with The Advocate -- because it's certainly not out of an abiding love for the magazine.

As the profile of Hayes notes, The Advocate's (previous) editors ran a fake Q-and-A with Hayes as "Will & Grace" was ending in 2006. It was a collection of quotes from other interviews, and as the magazine puts it, it "made him look rather silly for pretending no one knows he's gay."

"Really? You're gonna shoot the gay guy down?" he says.

"Why would you go down that path with somebody who's done so much to contribute to the gay community? That was my beef about it," he adds. "What more do you want me to do? Do you want me to stand on a float? And then what? It's never enough.

"That's the thing about celebrity: It sets you up to fail because the expectation is so high of what's needed, what's wanted from you that the second you don't [meet it], you disappoint people."


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Photo credit: The Advocate