“The gay community supported me from the start, and I will always be grateful.”
To celebrate LGBT Pride Month, several high profile musicians, including Britney Spears, Elton John, Christina Aguilera and Selena Gomez, have written love letters to the LGBT community.
The first of these has been shared on Billboard.com and it is by none other than actress, singer and living legend Barbra Steisand.
In the letter, she reflects on some of her earliest experiences performing:
“The first time I ever sang for a paying audience was at a gay club, The Lion, in Greenwich Village. I was 18 years old and had never been in a nightclub before. The gay community supported me from the start, and I will always be grateful.”
Barbra, whose son Jason Gould is an out gay singer, continues:
“Marriage equality is the law and that deserves a toast… to all of us, because we’re all unique and beautiful in our own way and entitled to love and be loved by whomever we choose.”
She also says she regrets not managing to bring Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart to the big screen.
“I remember sitting in a theater and watching Larry Kramer’s play, The Normal Heart, with tears running down my cheeks. It was 1985 and Ronald Reagan was president and it was heartbreaking to know people were dying while he refused to even say the word AIDS. I wanted more people to see this powerful story about everyone’s right to love, so I tried for 25 years to get it made as a movie. No one would touch it, but thank God times have changed.”
In 2014 the play was made into a film by Ryan Murphy. It aired on HBO and won the Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie.
You can read the rest of the open letters here.
