Well that’s a first: Broadway show ends in real-life same-sex wedding

The Prom already made history in November when two performers from the show shared the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade’s first same-sex kiss. And on Saturday, August 3, the Tony-winning Broadway musical made history again by hosting Broadway’s first known on-stage wedding, per The Advocate… and a lesbian wedding at that!

The newlyweds? Armelle Kay Harper, a script coordinator for the show, and Jody Kay Smith, an actress and singer who recently worked with the show’s musical director. The guests? The entire cast of The Prom, plus about 1,000 Longacre Theatre audience members who didn’t know they’d be attending a wedding that night, according to The New York Times.

Harper tells the newspaper she had just left a rehearsal in 2017 when she opened Bumble and found Smith’s profile. The lovebirds started chatting, and Smith was taken by Harper’s sense of humor.

“We’re both really witty people, and it’s hard to find someone who can keep up,” Harper adds. “But she really got me, and she made me laugh. Plus those blue eyes. What can you do? Gorgeous.”

Related: Figure skaters Eric Radford and Luis Fenero get hitched in romantic Spanish wedding

They got serious very quickly — so quickly, in fact, that Smith proposed to Harper 19 days after they met. Bob Martin, one of the writers of The Prom, came up with the idea of the wedding. “He said, ‘Well, I’ve married people onstage before, so if you wanted to just get it over with and do it at curtain call, we can do that,’” Smith says.

And the setting was perfect for the couple: The show, which is being adapted for the screen by Ryan Murphy, focuses on a lesbian couple in Indiana who campaign to attend prom together.

“There are so many shows where lesbians are secondary characters or the butt of the joke,” Harper tells the Times. “We all love Fun Home, but it’s a drama. So The Prom is really unique in that it’s a celebration, and it’s funny without being at the expense of lesbians. It’s just so much joy.”

Related: Ryan Murphy and Netflix have a huge queer announcement

Now the couple is getting ready for a larger ceremony in Smith’s hometown next month. Harper says that she grew up in an “incredibly homophobic” environment and that most of her family won’t be attending their ceremony next month.

“Even coming from that background, I’ve never felt a pinch of regret or shame,” she says. “Loving Jody is worth everything. And being myself is worth everything.”

www.queerty.com/well-thats-first-broadway-show-ends-real-life-sex-wedding-20190807?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

‘Boycott Equinox and SoulCycle’: Trump-Funding Owner Spurs Gay Outrage

News of a Republican fundraiser sparked immediate calls for a boycott.

www.advocate.com/business/2019/8/07/boycott-equinox-and-soulcycle-trump-funding-owner-spurs-gay-outrage

Ryan Murphy has a huge announcement about his next collaborator

Queer TV impresario Ryan Murphy has announced his next collaborator: Monica Lewinsky.

Lewinsky will join Murphy to produce the next season of American Crime Story titled American Crime Story: Impeachment. The anthology series will retrace the story of the Lewinsky Affair, as the scandal has become known, and feature actors from Murphy’s usual stock company. Both Sarah Paulson and Annaleigh Ashford, who have worked on previous seasons of ACS, will return to the show as Linda Tripp and Paula Jones, respectively. Queer actress Beanie Feldstein of Booksmart will play the role of Lewinsky.

Related: Ryan Murphy & Netflix have a huge queer announcement

Monica Lewinsky became a household name in the mid-1990s when her friend Linda Tripp leaked news that Lewinsky had engaged in an affair with then-President Bill Clinton while working as a White House intern. Lewinsky, only 22 at the time, endured a firestorm of media scrutiny and crude jokes as she was called before Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr. The details of the sexual relationship between Lewinsky and Clinton became the subject of The Starr Report and served as grounds for Clinton’s impeachment.

Ryan Murphy had considered doing a series on Lewinsky as early as 2017 based on Jeffery Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. The Hollywood Reporter also reports that Murphy later reconsidered his decision, telling Lewinsky at a party that he would not do the show without her. “I told her, ‘Nobody should tell your story but you, and it’s kind of gross if they do. If you want to produce it with me, I would love that; but you should be the producer and you should make all the goddamn money,’” Murphy says.

American Crime Story: Impeachment will debut in September 2020, just before the 2020 Presidential election.

www.queerty.com/ryan-murphy-huge-announcement-next-collaborator-20190807?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Boycott of Equinox, SoulCycle Gyms Urged After News That Billionaire Owner is Hosting Trump Fundraiser

Calls to ‘boycott Equinox’ rang out across social media after news broke that Stephen Ross, the owner of luxury fitness chains Equinox gym, SoulCycle, Blink Fitness and PURE Yoga, is hosting a $250,000 Trump fundraiser in the Hamptons on Friday.

The Washington Post reports: “Money raised at these fundraisers will go toward Trump Victory, a fundraising committee for both the Trump 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee.”

News of the event has inspired calls to boycott Ross’s brands.

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repost + spread the news @crunchgym @goldsgym @24hourfitness

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The post Boycott of Equinox, SoulCycle Gyms Urged After News That Billionaire Owner is Hosting Trump Fundraiser appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Boycott of Equinox, SoulCycle Gyms Urged After News That Billionaire Owner is Hosting Trump Fundraiser

Google Tweak Stops ‘Lesbian’ Searches From Returning So Much Porn

The change came after a social media campaign demanding a better reflection of the term.

www.advocate.com/news/2019/8/07/google-tweak-stops-lesbian-searches-returning-so-much-porn

This Disney star may have just saved some lives by coming out as bi

Joshua Rush — the 17-year-old actor who played Cyrus Goodman, the first Disney character ever to say the words “I’m gay” — recently came out as bisexual.

You may recall that in October 2017 Rush participated in the Disney Channel’s first-ever coming-out scene when his character in the pre-teen drama series Andi Mack revealed his crush on a boy. Although the show subsequently left Goodman’s sexuality mostly unexplored, in February 2019 his character actually uttered the words “I’m gay” in another groundbreaking first for the channel.

But Rush himself had never publicly declared his own same-sex attraction … until just yesterday.

In a Twitter thread, he wrote:

first! i win! it’s me. i’m bi. And now that I’ve said that, I have a few things to rant about. There are more important things to talk about than me liking a whole bunch of genders, but I do want to share a few things with you guys.

I saw so many of you watch Cyrus come out and said “Hey! I can be me!”

How ironic, isn’t it, that me, playing that character, never had mustered up that courage?

Instead of feeling the courage to tell you today that I am an out and proud bisexual man because of the character I played for four years, I feel that courage thinking of all of you, who felt emboldened by Cyrus to come out.

I had a close friend of mine come out to me in fifth grade. FIFTH GRADE! That was well before I had any clue of my own identity and orientation. I suffered with some level of my own internalized homophobia even while playing the first openly gay character on Disney Channel.

I stuffed the existential crisis of talking about my sexual orientation into a box in my mind for years. Today, I release it into the world.

Being bi isn’t all of my identity, nor is it the most important part of my identity. Bi erasure and issues like it are important, but trans women of color still have a life expectancy of THIRTY FIVE YEARS and that is absolutely unacceptable …

Thank you to you for giving me the courage to know who I am and tell you this today. Happy 20biteen!

He then encouraged his followers to donate to The Trevor Project and GLAAD and to read GLAAD’s page on bisexuality.

Rush’s coming out and education on bi issues are great for other bi people, for visibility’s sake and to help reduce biphobia.

www.queerty.com/disney-star-may-just-saved-lives-coming-bi-20190807?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Tom Brady Was Upset His Son Didn’t Want to Do ‘Boy Things’ Like Play Sports

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady told Men’s Health that he was upset when one of his sons decided that he didn’t want to play sports like his dad. And now he’s learned his lesson.

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The way I train has evolved so much over my 20 years in the NFL, and it’s showed me that anyone can continue to get better. Recently I got to talk with @menshealthmag about wellness, longevity, and everything our team at @tb12sports is doing to help others achieve peak performance. I’m excited to share it with all of you, along with a couple shots from one of my favorite weeks of the year in the Bahamas! Click the link in my bio for the full story!

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Said Brady of his two sons: “Jack loves sports. He wants to try hard, and he never wants to disappoint his dad. That was me. I’d wake up early on weekends to do stuff with my dad. That’s why I didn’t party a lot. If Dad wanted to golf, I wanted to be there with him. And if I ever missed those things, it would crush me. When Benny came along, I thought he would be just like Jack. So I was like, ‘C’mon, let’s do this.’ And he was like, ‘Nope.’ And I was like, ‘What? No, do this!’ And Gisele kept saying to me, ‘Would you effing understand that your son is different?’ It was hard for me. I was like, ‘What do you mean? He’s a boy; he should just do all these things that I do.’ The reality is that Benny just likes different things. And it’s great because now I just have to go do what he wants to do. When we do that, we have the best time. He’s like, ‘OMG, Dad, you’re so funny.’ He loves joking, and I joke back.”

The post Tom Brady Was Upset His Son Didn’t Want to Do ‘Boy Things’ Like Play Sports appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Tom Brady Was Upset His Son Didn’t Want to Do ‘Boy Things’ Like Play Sports