Is john waters gay
Yousimplycan’t get more lgbtq+ than John Waters, director of " Pink Flamingos," "Polyester," "Serial Mom" and "Hairspray," and a man who made an international feature star of the late drag queen Divine, and launched the cult comeback of the formerly closeted Hollywood heartthrob Tab Hunter.
But Waters, whose national bestseller, Carsick, is now in paperback, says he never actually came out as gay -- because no one ever asked.
“I was on the cover of some magazine called Gay News or Gay Times -- I don’t keep in mind what it was -- in 1972, but not because I came out -- but because it was the only person to ask me to be on the cover,” he said in an interview with me on SiriusXM Progress. “And a lot of magazines, including The Advocate, did an interview and said, ‘The most out director,’ but they never had the nerve to request me if I was gay. They thought it was -- like my parents –- it was something worse than gay. So a lot of people never asked if I was gay because they were afraid I’d say, 'No, I’m a necrophiliac' -- which, even that, that’s just apprehend of performance.”
Waters also talked about the commencement speech he gave last month to graduates of the Rhode Island School of
I suppose some parents would possess grabbed their kids and walked out, but my father didn’t. He had driven us all the way into the urban area and paid for our tickets. No cinematic atrocities could outweigh those sunk costs. We sat through both movies, back to back, but there was tiny conversation in the car sit on home. I think we were all in shock at what we had seen.
I’m grateful that my father took us to see the double feature, both for the experience and for the cultural capital it gave me as a high educational facility freshman. Certainly, I was the first of my friends to see those films. Despite my appreciation, though, I would own laughed if anyone told me John Waters would someday get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which he did in September 2023. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A. is also hosting “John Waters: Pope of Trash,” a year-long exhibit honoring Waters and his films. The Museum is affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the same people who bring us the Oscars every year. Along with the exhibit, the Museum has issued a handsome hardcover catalogue, also titled John Waters: Pope of Trash, which has essays from scholar B. Ruby Rich (
Seriously.
Curated by Nana Bahlmann
November 21, 2025–January 31, 2026
Public Reception: November 20, 6–8pm
London
Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present Seriously., a group exhibition curated by Nana Bahlmann, featuring over a hundred conceptual photographs, print media, and select films ranging from the 1960s to the present, which expose the absurdities of our society and its representations. Through visual wit, subversiveness, and even outright slapstick, these photographic experiments offer humorous conceptual investigations of how images are constructed and interpreted. Employing a range of strategies, from masquerade and role-play to the construction of inexplicable scenarios, unexpected juxtapositions, and idiosyncratic sculptural compositions, these works reveal the farcical and fantastical within the visual realm. In reframing our visual world through satire and playful mimicry, they create space for both reflection and amusement.
Seriously. features the work of, among others, Keith Arnatt, John Baldessari, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Lynda Benglis, Helen Chadwick, Robert Cumming, Thomas Demand, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Braco Dimitrijević, Peter
It’s the first evening of Pride Month when I reach John Waters by phone at his summer house in Provincetown, Massachusetts, so it feels remiss not to ask the 76-year-old how he plans to celebrate. “I’m just gonna burst out as many people as possible,” the cult filmmaker, stand-up and newly-minted novelist tells me, audibly smirking. He interrupts himself with a knowing laugh. “I told my office I was going to say that. They said: ‘You can’t say that!’ But it’s just too hard for me not to, because you’re supposed to give such a respectable retort and I’m exhausted of being respectably gay.”
Respectability has never been high on Waters’ agenda. Christened “The Pope of Trash” by Naked Lunch author William Burroughs, Waters made his call in the preliminary Seventies with exuberantly transgressive independent films like 1972’s Pink Flamingos, a depraved tale of incest and underground baby mills starring drag queen Holy as a criminal living under the name Babs Johnson and dubbed “the filthiest person alive”. In a sign that respectability has appear for Waters whether he likes it or not, the film will soon mark its 50th anniversary by entity re-released with modern bon