How a shirtless Richard Gere helped Anderson Cooper realize he was gay:
On Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM show, Radio Andy, Anderson Cooper fondly reminisced about seeing a young Richard Gere in a Broadway production of Bent when he was just 11 years old.
Bent, Martin Shermen’s play about the persecution of homosexuality by the Nazis, centers around two gay men. The play opens with a naked man waking up after spending the night with another man, before the protagonist then gets dressed in a SS uniform.
Anderson, now 55 years old, told Cohen: “I just remember being like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gay. … I’m totally gay.’”
“I mean the opening scene… It is the gayest thing you can imagine.” Cooper added. “This was Richard Gere in 1977… He was so beautiful.”