IN PRIDE month, everything and everyone LGBTQ+ gets to shine. Which is why we’re outing these iconic figures from the storied past and you can’t stop us:
Henry VIII, 1491-1547
Not so much six wives as six beards, old Harry was unable to sire a son because he got the vapours at the sight of a fanny. He was at it with everyone from Thomas More to the stable boy to Francis I of France. Anne Boleyn wasn’t executed for infidelity but for borrowing his bejewelled mules for a dance and returning them covered in scuffs.
Boudica, 25-61
This iconic Iceni queen was marching on London long before the first Pride, but never gets credit as a first-century bisexual who gathered armies under the motto ‘I’ll give anyone a go, as long as they’re not a bloody Roman’.
The Venerable Bede, 672-735
Anyone with a name this fabulous has to be gay, and while the Anglo-Saxon scholar is best known for his books of theology, that’s because his parties in Monkwearmouth monastery were so legendary and sexually excessive nobody could remember a thing about them. Definitely the Freddie Mercury of the 700s.
Jane Austen, 1775-1817
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane was a mad twat-diver, which is why she wrote novels mocking the silly cishets and their pathetic courtship rituals. She never married, lived alone with her cats and wrote Pride and Prejudice, the title alone of which is a dead giveaway.
John F Kennedy, 1917-1963
Like Henry VIII, used a reputation for philandering to hide his rampant, unapologetic gayness. Regularly paraded around the White House in leather chaps and a cowboy hat and met Lee Harvey Oswald at a Dallas gloryhole. The CIA tried to cover this up with unconvincing conspiracy theories and dispatched Oswald’s pimp, Jack Ruby, to kill him.
Isaac Newton, 1642-1726
Lifelong bachelor. Spent his whole life spectacularly bewigged. Discovered the rainbow, for God’s sake.
Larry Grayson, 1923-1995
Though nobody would ever have suspected, the taciturn, hard-as-nails host of The Generation Game from 1978 to 1982 was actually a closeted homosexual. He concealed his sexuality behind a facade of overpowering masculinity as did his 1990s successor, Jim Davidson.
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, 1738-1809
Oh come on. You’ve only got to look at him.
