Gay soap actors
Celebrate Pride Month With a Salute to Soaps’ Out and Proud LGBTQ+ Stars
There are those who question why there has to be an LGBTQ+ Movement Month. “We don’t get a Straight Pride Month,” they argue. But they don’t have to come out as straight, it’s assumed that they are (and that, unless told otherwise, everyone is). They haven’t had to struggle for “permission” to marry the person that they adore, it was freely given to them. They haven’t had to live in fear of what the world would think of them — or, worse, do to them — if their hetero status was revealed. And they don’t at this very moment have what LGBTQ+ people do: more than 550 proposed bills targeting their community in hopes of silencing it, stripping it of its hard-won rights and driving it back into the closet.
So there ya go. That’s why there has to be an LGBTQ+ Pride Month — and in 2025 as much, if not more, than ever.
On this occasion, Soaps wants to celebrate its out and pleased stars, the actors whose disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or trans or nonbinary status has served to uplift and empower others. It’
Soap Opera Stars and Producers Who Identify as LGBTQ
Soap operas are long-running television shows that portray the lives of many individuals through their daily, usually emotionally intense, interactions. They usually are shown during the daytime, though there are some notable evening soap operas. This genre of television show got its identify from the sponsorship of soap companies in its early days. They are known as telenovas in Spanish-speaking countries. Soap operas attract millions of dedicated viewers.
There have been many prominent actors in soap operas that are LGBTQ. Producers and directors of these shows who are LGBTQ include the creators of Britain's most popular soap opera 'Coronation Street', Derek Granger and Tony Warren; the producer of 'Hollyoaks' and 'EastEnders' Bryan Kirkwood; and soap opera scriptwriters Jonathan Harvey and Jane Chambers.
In terms of the content of soap operas, it is only relatively recently that the story lines have included LGBTQ characters. The American soap opera 'Soap' was the first to comprise a gay character in 1977 (the character Jodie Dallas), while the first openly gay nature in Great Britain's soaps was the show
Living Out Loud: A Salute to Soaps’ LGBTQ+ All-Stars [PHOTOS]
Love Wins
In honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month, Soaps.com is saluting the stars of The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, Beyond the Gates and General Hospital who are living their truth.
Greg Rikaart
In 2013, the Young & Restless and Days of Our Lives leading man (as Kevin Fisher and Leo Stark, respectively) came out accompanying the Supreme Court’s decisions in favor of same-sex marriage and equality. Since 2015, the Emmy winner has been married to writer/producer Robert Sudduth (Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies), with whom he has a son, Montgomery.
Joanna Johnson
Just before Bold & Beautiful revealed that Bill Spencer’s sister Karen is a lesbian, her portrayer toldTV Guide that she is, too. For years, “I was so worried I wouldn’t be employable as an actress if people knew,” she said, “or that I wouldn’t be believable in love affair stories. I had to deal with a lot of self-loathing.” Now a TV producer, Johnson has been married since 2008 to club promoter Michelle Agnew, with whom she has two childre
Did anyone else grow up watching soap operas with your grandma in the late ’90s and preliminary 2000s? There’s at least some part of me that believes this was a gay rite of passage. The guilted lovers, the hidden twin, the murder victim who really went into hiding – soap operas were the best cheese on prime time. Although I haven’t watched one in a very long time, I can imagine that a portion of campy goodness still remains. And then… there was the studly male characters waiting in the shadows to keep the damsel in distress from a murder plot from an evil step sibling.
At one point, there were a dozen soap operas on air. Now, in 2023, there are only four sole survivors – The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, The Juvenile and the Restless and General Hospital. Growing up, though, I watched Passions with my grandma. The virginal girl sucked into Hell through her closet door, the long-lost brother, the murderous barren who ruled the town. I can still hear McKenzie Westmore screaming “LOUIS!” to this very day. Passions is also responsible for kicking my love of Latin men into overdrive. Half the cast of Passions was certainly bang-