Celebrities Who Have Left a Gay Lifestyle

Homosexuality is not fixed and unchangeable, as these public figures reveal. Some of them celebrate their sexual fluidity as a good thing; others believe that the only true expression of sexuality is heterosexuality, since it is consistent with our biological design.  

But the message is the same from all of them — people can change.

Anne Heche

Anne (born May 25, 1969) was an American actress who died in 2022. Her film credits include Six Days Seven Nights, Return to Paradise, I Know What You Did Last Summer, John Q and Volcano. She also starred in the television series Men in Trees, Hung, and, most recently, in Save Me, Dig and Quantico.

Heche and DeGeneres started dating in 1997, and at one point, said they would get a civil union if such became legal in Vermont. They broke up in August 2000.

Reporters asked “what the walls would say” if their $3.5 million L.A. pad could talk, more than three years after their going public with their relationship. “They’d be saying that we are very excited and we’re very happy and in love three years later,” DeGeneres said.

“Yeah,” Heche agreed. “We’re very lucky women, that we get to have what we have.”

“It’s a celebration every single day,” DeGeneres continued. “It’s kind of disgusting and crazy that we’re like … Oh, we’re so lucky.”

“Yeah,” Heche agreed. “We’re lucky, we’re so lucky.”[1]

Here statement about not being gay any more:
Anne then left Ellen DeGeneres to marry James Tupper.

From an interview:

[the interviewer] said “You were gay for a bit… you have an open mind.” Anne said “I have yes – had an open mind. But then I make decisions, ‘I have an open mind, but then ‘I’ve learned about that….fantastic’… I have an open mind, I can change my mind…There’s a door, we can close that door. We can go to another door.”[2]

Jessica Ellen Cornish (Jessie J)

Jessie J is an English singer and songwriter. She is the first British female artist to have six top ten singles from a studio album. The release of her third album Sweet Talker (2014) was preceded by the single “Bang Bang” which debuted at number one in the UK and went multi-platinum worldwide. As of January 2015, Jessie J had sold over 20 million singles and 3 million albums worldwide.

Her statement when she was gay:

She said in an interview:

If I meet someone and I like them, I don’t care if they’re a boy or a girl.

Her statement about not being gay any more:

From an interview about her previous lesbian attractions:

Passing comments [were] made into ‘facts’ that can never change. Guess what? They can change. As they should. And I have changed and grown up ALOT, and that’s allowed. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now than ever before. We all are on a journey and I refuse to feel boxed and judged because of how I felt once! A long-ass time ago. Vegetarians eat meat sometimes. Get it? People change.[3]

Bob Dixon

Sen. Bob Dixon is an American Republican politician currently serving the Missouri State Senate who. Dixon was first elected to the house in 2002 and served four terms. Between 2004 and 2008 he served as Majority Caucus Chairman and chaired the House Transportation committee.

Statement about not being gay any more: 
Missouri State Sen. Bob Dixon claims that childhood abuse and teenage confusion caused him to engage in gay relationships for a few years.

Dixon’s campaign issued a statement touting his faith in God and support for traditional marriage, while condemning any opponents who try to use his past against him.

“Through the years, I have publicly spoken about being abused as a child and the confusion this caused me as a teenager,” said Dixon in the statement. “There are literally thousands of Missourians who will understand how heartbreaking childhood abuse can be — though few might be willing to acknowledge it.

“I have put the childhood abuse, and the teenage confusion behind me,” said Dixon, who has a wife and three children. “What others intended for harm has resulted in untold good. I have overcome, and will not allow evil to win.”[4]

Julie Cypher

Julie Cypher is a film director who is best known as the former partner of Melissa Etheridge, a singer-songwriter, musician, and activist. Known for being one-half of one of the first “out” lesbian celebrity couples, Cypher advocated for gay rights. She and Etheridge then split and Cypher married Matthew Hale.

Her statement when she was gay:

Well, I was straight. I was married to Lou Diamond Phillips. I’d known lesbians as friends in college, but I’d never met a woman that I was attracted to, so lesbianism had never occurred to me—until I met Melissa. Then it occurred very strongly.[5]

From an interview with Cypher and Etheridge…

“Do you now consider yourself a lesbian?”
Cypher: “I absolutely do.”
“Would you be with a man again?”
Cypher: “I doubt it. I would look for the person, for the soul, but I just feel that the female psyche is where I find my satisfaction with relationships.”

Her statement about not being gay: 

In 1999, she said, “You know, I’ve tried and I’ve tried these last couple of years, and I’m just not gay.”

Gillian Anderson

Gillian Leigh Anderson (born 1968) is an American-British film, television and theatre actress. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in The House of Mirth (2000), and Lady Dedlock in the successful BBC production of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.

In an interview with Out magazine, she described a lesbian relationship with a woman who had recently died.[7]

Her statement about not being in a gay lifestyle any more:

Anderson now identifies as heterosexual and has been twice married to men.

I am an actively heterosexual woman who celebrates however people want to express their sexuality. [8]

She is currently single, but looking to start a new relationship with a man.

Sheryl Swoopes

Sheryl Swoopes (born 1971) is a retired American professional basketball player and the head coach of the women’s basketball team of Loyola University, Chicago. She is frequently referred to as the “female Michael Jordan.”

Her statement when she was gay:

“I’m not bisexual,” she said. “I don’t think I was born [gay]. Again, it was a choice. As I got older, once I got divorced, it wasn’t like I was looking for another relationship, man or woman. I just got feelings for another woman. I didn’t understand it at the time, because I had never had those feelings before.”

One reporter at Out Sports explains the situation:

“Sheryl is just more proof that no one is born gay, it is a learned behavior brought on by experiences and circumstances in one’s life. I am very happy for Sheryl…”

Statement about not being gay any more:

From an interview when Swoopes was asked if she was “born gay”:

Swoopes: “No and that’s probably confusing to some, because I know a lot of people believe that you are.”[9]

Swoopes now has been twice married to men.

David Kyle Foster

David Kyle Foster is an author, professor, television producer, and the director and founder of Mastering Life Ministries. He has spoken on five continents about the healing of sexual brokenness, and has appeared on The 700 Club, The Dr. Phil Show, The Coral Ridge Hour, The Abundant Life, Cope, His Place, Home Life, and has been the host of Covenant Award winning “Mastering Life” on the Focus on the Family Radio Network.

What he said about having been gay:

“Because of my fear of mature women, I chose to see them as sexless ‘Snow White’ figures. My favorite actresses were Julie Andrews and Hayley Mills. When I became sexually active in my late teens, it quickly became far less stressful to go with males. Besides, most of the ones who came after me were older men who didn’t expect reciprocation or commitment on my part. Deep inside, I was still looking for ‘Father Knows Best”,’ and when older men gave me the time and attention that I craved, the results were almost inevitable.”[10]

What he says today:

Excerpts from David Kyle Foster’s testimony on the PFOX website: …

“Perhaps my personal witness to change can be of some help. I have been changed in many and varied ways over the past 32 years after seeking the Lord at the age of 29 to deliver me from a bondage to homosexuality, pornography and other sexually addictive behaviors. After 10 years of active involvement in the ‘anything but gay’ homosexual lifestyle, Jesus Christ revealed Himself to me and has set me free from what statistics show to be a death-style lain upon the foundations of profound brokenness….My identity has been completely transformed and I see myself as the heterosexual male that God had always created me to be.”[11]

Donald Andrew McClurkin (Donnie McClurkin)

Donald Andrew “Donnie” McClurkin, Jr. (born 1959) is an American gospel singer and minister. He has won three Grammy awards, and is one of the top selling Gospel music artists, selling over 10 million albums worldwide.

Statement about when he was gay:

McClurkin, in 2002, told a Christian website that, due to the sexual abuse of his earlier years, he had struggled with homosexuality.

Statement about not being gay anymore:

“I’ve been through this and have experienced God’s power to change my lifestyle. I am delivered and I know God can deliver others, too.”[13]

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando was an American actor, film director, and activist. He was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named in 1999 by Time magazine as one of its 100 Most Important People of the Century.

Statement about hisinvolvement in homosexuality:

In 1976 he told a French journalist

“I too have had homosexual experiences, and I am not ashamed. I’d never paid much attention to what people think about me. Deep down I feel a bit ambiguous.”[14]

On living a straight lifestyle:

Brando ended up having several marriages with women—  Anna Kashfi (m. 1957; div. 1959), Movita Castaneda (m. 1960; div. 1962), Tarita Teriipaia (m. 1962; div. 1972).

Dennis Jernigan

Dennis Jernigan is a singer and songwriter of contemporary Christian music. He is native to Oklahoma, and headquarters a music-based Christian ministry from there.

Statement about not being gay anymore:

From a blog by Dennis Jernigan…

“This statement will probably produce a lot of controversy, but this is how I think of myself: I do not consider myself a recovering/former/ex gay. I consider myself a new creation. The slate of my mind is being erased and the old thoughts are being replaced with new thinking. What I have discovered in the process is that when I change my thoughts, my attitudes change. When I change my attitudes, my behaviors change. When I change my behaviors, my perspectives change. When my perspectives change, I see life from a vantage point that homosexuality NEVER afforded me.”[15]

Dennis Jernigan lives with his wife Melinda (pictured together at left), in Oklahoma on the farm where they raised their nine children.

Chirlane McCray

Chirlane I. McCray (born 1954) is a writer, editor, and has worked in politics as a speechwriter. She is married to former New York City Mayor Bill del Blasio, and was the “First Lady” of New York City.

Statement when she was gay:

“I survived the tears, the isolation and the feeling that something was terribly wrong with me for loving another woman… coming to terms with my life as a lesbian has been easier for me than it has been for many.”[15]

Asked how she had left a lesbian lifestyle to marry a man, she explained it this way:

“By putting aside the assumptions I had about the form and package my love would come in. By letting myself be as free as I felt when I went natural.”[16]

Jan Clausen

Jan Clausen is the author of a dozen books in a range of genres. Clausen’s poetry and creative prose are widely published in journals and anthologies.

When she was in a gay lifestyle:

“After 12 years in a lesbian marriage, Jan Clausen fell in love with a man. Since her identities as writer and lesbian were intertwined, all hell broke loose. Clausen’s books are yanked off college reading lists. She loses friends, community, and status.”[17]

When she left the gay lifestyle: 

Seeking to contradict the idea that people are born gay, she said,

“What’s got to stop is the rigging of history to make the ‘either/or’ look permanent and universal.”[18]

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie is one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actress as well as one of the most influential people in the American entertainment industry.

Statement when she was living as a lesbian:

In a 1997 interview with Girlfriends magazine:

“I fell in love with her the first second I saw her. ‘I would probably have married Jenny if I hadn’t married my [first] husband.’”[19]

Statement about not being in a lesbian lifestyle anymore:

Jolie spoke to Us Weekly soon after marrying Brad Pitt, saying,

“It’s been an amazing year. I married my love.”[20]

Michael Glatze

Michael Glatze was the co-founder of the group “Young Gay America” and a former writer/editor and passionate advocate for gay rights. Later, he received media coverage for publicly announcing that he no longer identified as a homosexual, and that he believed that a gay identity is not in harmony with our created design.

Statement about when he was gay:

“I was always a theoretical thinker, and I got into Queer Theory and I analyzed all the different facets of sexual identity, and I identified as queer.”[23]

Statement about not being gay anymore:

“Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic. It destroys impressionable minds and confuses their developing sexuality; I did not realize this, however, until I was 30 years old,”

Glatze wrote in an article in WorldNetDaily.

“It became clear to me, as I really thought about it – and really prayed about it – that homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within. We cannot see the truth when we’re blinded by homosexuality.”[24]

“Best friends for 25 years, mother and father are both very excited about the upcoming birth and look forward to co-parenting the child together. The pair have been planning this baby for years and have been trying for the last two.”[26]