Deborra-Lee Furness lampoons ‘mean-spirited’ rumours her husband Hugh Jackman is secretly gay
Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness attend the 13th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival. (Lacroix/Getty)
Deborra-Lee Furness has mocked “mean-spirited” rumours that her husband Hugh Jackman is secretly gay, insisting that it’s “all made up”.
The rumour that Hugh Jackman is gay is confusing as the Les Miserables star has never publicly given any indication that he is not straight.
In 2018, Jackman said he thinks the long-running suspicions come from Tony-winning performance as Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz, a musical about the musician who was Liza Minelli’s first husband before coming out as gay and eventually dying of HIV-related cancer in 1992.
His performance, way back in 2003, included an on-stage kiss with a male actor. At one point, he was holding back laughter and he believes the audience interpreted his shaking body as sexual desire.
He told Metro: “I was literally just locking lips… I started to laugh so hard.
“So I stay kissing him, because I thought, ‘I’m just going to laugh. I’m going to stay here until it subsides,’ and it never subsided and the whole audience could see my body shaking, so they started.”
Appearing on Anh’s Brush with Fame Tuesday (29 September), Jackman’s wife of 24 years Deborra-Lee Furness hit back at the rumours.
She said: “I see these magazines and they’re so mean-spirited. I hope people don’t buy these magazines and realise it’s all made up.”
Anh Do, host of the Australian talkshow, asked her: “Is Hugh gay?”
Furness sarcastically responded: “He’s been gay for so many years, I was gay too when I did [the 1988 film] Shame. They were shocked when I got married.”
“It’s just wrong,” she added. “It’s like someone saying to Elton John, “Oh he’s straight.” I’m sure he’d be p**sed! He’s not straight!”
In 2013, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner also addressed rumours that Jackman was secretly gay.
She said: “I have seen him with Deborra since the beginning of their trip to Hollywood, and I’ve been on five movie sets with him and have never seen him stray, have never seen him eye anyone.”
