“I’m not gay now”: Little Richard’s struggles with his own sexuality
Rock and roll changed the world forever when it hit the global airwaves back in the 1950s. Among this new group of artists who were trying to revolutionise the world of pop music, there were few as important or iconic as Little Richard. From humble beginnings in Macon, Georgia, Little Richard rose to become one of rock’s defining figures, laying out the foundations that virtually every future rock artist would follow. Despite his intense success and fame, the life of Little Richard was often tragic, particularly with regard to his continued struggle with his own sexuality.
When Little Richard – real name Richard Penniman – emerged onto the rock and roll scene, he was quickly noted for his flamboyant persona and glamorous appearance. Richard would wear copious amounts of makeup and spectacular stage outfits, setting him apart from other rock stars like Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis, who often tried to exude a classic sense of masculinity. At that time, widespread audiences were not wholly aware of homosexuality, but as time went on, more and more people began to accept the possibility that Little Richard was, in fact, gay.
By his own admission, Richard had been with both men and women during his teenage years and was thrown out of his childhood home after his father discovered him wearing his mother’s makeup and clothing. During the early 1950s, it was the openly gay musician Billy Wright who guided Richard on his path to rock and roll greatness, convincing the musician that being a glamorous, flamboyant performer was fine, regardless of his sexuality.
So, for a handful of years, Richard travelled around the globe performing trailblazing rock and roll music for audiences of all genders and sexualities, unafraid to express himself through makeup, clothing, and the like. However, this all changed in 1958 when he abandoned rock music and formed Little Richard Evangelistic Team, fearing that rock and roll music was not accepted by Christianity. It was during this time that Richard also relinquished his previous claims that he was a gay man, claiming that homosexuality was an affront to God.
Nevertheless, Richard was also known to participate in mixed-sex orgies during this period, too. In fact, he was arrested in 1962 for allegedly spying on men in the toilets of a bus station in California. Even when the rock architect returned to secular music during the mid-1960s and into the 1970s, he gave consistently mixed reports on whether or not he was still living as a homosexual. In 1982, when David Letterman interviewed the rock icon, he said, “God gave me the victory. I’m not gay now, but, you know, I was gay all my life.”
Seemingly, though, Richard’s religious views once again caused him to question that sexuality. “I believe I was one of the first gay people to come out,” he said. “But God let me know that he made Adam be with Eve, not Steve. So, I gave my heart to Christ. I’m a man for the first time in my life.” Although that interview was played for laughs at the time, it contains a multitude of heartbreaking realities.
First of all, Richard plays into the harmful myth that homosexuality is a conscious choice, as well as suggesting that gay men are not men at all. On one hand, it is easy to understand why the musician struggled so much with his own sexuality.
After all, being gay in the United States has never been particularly easy; even today, the LGBTQ+ community still face a deluge of societal and institutionalised oppression in everyday life. Inevitably, the situation was much worse for the community back in Richard’s heyday. Once you add evangelical Christianity, which has always harboured homophobic views, into the mix, you can see why Richard was consistently conflicting himself when discussing his sexuality.
Only a handful of years after that Letterman interview, Richard spoke to Joan Rivers, proudly telling her, “I didn’t mind telling the world that I was gay, I was gay and it’s nice to be happy. I had been that way all my life, so I told everybody that I am gay.” Although his use of past tense suggests that Richard was still hanging on to the idea that he had renounced his homosexuality, he did not appear to be ashamed of his gay past – as opposed to many other interviews he gave around that time.
A few years before his death, Richard once again spoke about his sexuality, this time on the Christian Three Angels Broadcasting Network. During his 2017 appearance, the rock star called homosexuality an “unnatural affection” which stands in opposition to “the way God wants you to live,” regurgitating the same Christian evangelist talking points that have caused so much damage to the LGBTQ+ community for so many years.
Little Richard’s constant flip-flopping on his own sexuality is tragic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it is an indictment of how deeply ingrained homophobia is within US society that even one of rock and roll’s most important figures cannot comfortably live his life as a gay man. It must also be noted, however, that Richard’s repeated denouncing of homosexuality as an insult to God gave credence to the damaging ideas that being gay is both a choice and is inherently unnatural.
