Big Gay Closet

Openly gay PR man Howard Bragman is the mastermind orchestrating the buzz around May 5′s short-lived mystery celeb coming out. We know now that the gay celeb is country singer Chely Wright — and all the build-up made her more famous than a new album and book could. But the guessing game had America speculating about other gay-ish celebrities like Queen Latifah, Shelby Lynne, Ryan Seacrest, and Anderson Cooper, none of whom were ready to come out themselves, nor answer questions about when they might. So while Bragman’s ultimate goal was to ease one client out of the closet, did he actually hurt the larger group of still-closeted gay celebs?

Bragman has helped other gay public figures come out. There’s WNBA player Cheryl Swoopes, Cher’s daughter-cum-son Chaz Bono, and Family Ties’ Meredith Baxter. Thanks to Bragman, Chely Wright this week becomes free to embrace lesbianism in her life. Her new memoir Like Me and album Lifted Off The Ground will undoubtedly sell bigger because of the buzz. That’s great for both of them, but what about the other closeted celebs who have had to fend off their own outings in the wake of Wright’s media storm? Is it OK that Wright and Bragman’s press ploy may have placed unnecessary pressure on closeted celebs? Do they have no obligation to these other gay celebrities whatsoever?

read the rest: Did Howard Bragman Do More Damage To Gay Celebrities Than Good? / Queerty.

I’d wondered about this myself. The key here was obviously to build as much hype as possible because with someone of Chely Wright’s low profile, the announcement wouldn’t have made much of a stir on its own. However, the manufactured hype created a situation that must have been incredibly stressful for celebrities who are still keeping their sexuality  a secret — and for those who are keeping no secrets but are accused of it anyway.

So. Should Howard Bragman have considered this effect before he created all this hype? Or should celebrities simply expect pressure like this as part of being closeted?

TMZ has learned the big “coming out” announcement planned for this week will be … country star Chely Wright.

There’s been a big buzz over the last week as to which celeb was announcing he/she was gay … we knew it was going to be unveiled in PEOPLE mag next week.  But now TMZ knows for sure.

Wright has a book coming out this week as well — it’s called, “Like Me.”  And she has a CD coming out too — called “Lifted Off the Ground.”

The 39-year-old singer scored a #1 country song back in 1999 with “Single White Female,” when she was named Academy of Country Music new artist of the year.

Wright is the first major country artist ever to come out.  She has been romantically linked to a number of celebs, including Brad Paisley.

This is a big deal in the country world.  Chely is rolling the dice on her career … it’s unclear how traditionally-conservative country fans will react.

Interesting … she lists Howard Bragman as her publicist, who was the mastermind behind the Chaz Bono story.

via Chely Wright — She’s Coming Out | TMZ.com.

TMZ has a pretty good track record, so it’s pretty likely this is true.

Not being a country music fan, I’ve never heard of her. It’ll be interesting to see what she has to say on Wednesday.

Tracie over at Jezebel does an odds-on roundup of the possible outees for the May 5th Hollywood Coming Out Spectacular that is driving everybody nuts.

The Celebs?

Johnny Weir 1/4

Kelly Clarkson 1/1

Venus Williams 9/1

Zachary Quinto 2/3

Oprah 49/1

Queen Latifah 1/10

Well, there's that.

Bragman has been talking a lot about how it’s time a gay man be cast as a superhero. But one of our sources slipped and may have given us an additional clue about the celebrity’s identity. They used the pronoun “she” when talking to us about the mysterious upcoming guest. They quickly tried to correct themselves by going back to using “he”, but it was too late. While there are many women who it could be, we think we’ve got it narrowed it down to three, although we honestly didn’t expect any of these three women to come out this year. Additionally, Michael Musto of The Village Voice seems to think it’s a singer or someone involved in music. So, with all these conflicting clues, dear reader, your guess is as good as ours.via More on the Cinco de Mayo Surprise « BlindGossip.com.

Now this isn’t a gossip blog. And I do believe that we shouldn’t out people… however, looking at search stats, you guys desperately want to figure out who it is. And this person is voluntarily outing themselves, so… let’s speculate, shall we?

Someone tweeted they hoped it’d be Glenn Close. Now, hope is one thing but I don’t think it’s going to be the multiply married Ms Close anytime soon.

Any guesses from you guys?

So which Hollywood celebrity is going to come out on May 5?

People Magazine allegedly has the exclusive and the celeb is booked on several major talk shows that week including “The View.”

PR powerhouse Howard Bragman, who has successfully — some might add brilliantly — orchestrated several celeb outings in the past decade talked about his next coming out project at the GLAAD Media Awards red carpet Sunday (Apr. 17).

via Move over, Ricky Martin. Another Hollywood celeb is coming out – The Dish Rag – Zap2it.

Apart from how tempting it is to speculate — is the date a hint? — it’s really interesting to think about what kind of a production coming out has become for the Hollywood elite.

We know there are still stars in the closet. What prompts them to finally say, “enough is enough” and call Howard Bragman for a picture-perfect coming out press spree?

At least I can chill on May 5th (it’s Cinco de Mayo, just saying), knowing I’ll have something to write about.

Updated speculation here