He Was Very Openly Gay by 1950s Standards


His father — a Macon, Georgia minister and nightclub owner — kicked him out of their family home when he was fifteen, as he later explained on a 1985 talk show: “My daddy put me out of the house. He said he wanted seven boys, and I had spoiled it, because I was gay.”

As an adult in the ’50s, he made no effort to conceal his homosexuality. Before he became famous he even dated someone known as a “female impersonator,” to use the language of the time. (Little Richard is pictured above in I Am Everything.)

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