Larry King Live featured a roundtable celebrities including Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes, Lance Bass, Chely Wright and Tim Gunn who have rallied together in support of The Trevor Project and to explain to America just how we’re f*cking up our kids.
Kathy Griffin echoes Sarah Silverman when she cites Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Prop 8 as America’s clear message to teens that gays are unequal. She is also putting her money where her mouth is and donating the proceeds from her December 16th Los Angeles live show to The Trevor Project.
“I’m going to give my entire salary to them… I’ve been bullied… I remember one time I was getting my butt kicked in a park when I was a little kid. And I’ll never forget a guy walking by with a briefcase, just walking by. And I feel like at this time we can’t be that guy anymore. We can’t walk by anymore.”
Kathy also just released her “It Gets Better” video.
Back on Larry King, Wanda Sykes adds:
“I mean, just as a black person… I know things have gotten a lot better, but there’s parts of the United States that I would be afraid to go to as a black person. I mean, it’s just something that we’re born with, innate. When I go to a place, I check it out, I look around, and I go, ‘OK, is it cool for me to be here?’ And then as a gay person, I have to do the same thing. Until we have laws and until there is a strong presence that says, ‘Hey, this is not right, we’re not going to put up with it’, and it’s just taught down to the kids, then it’s not going to change.”
Lance Bass expanded on his “It Gets Better” video regarding bullying gay teens in high school:
“When you’re 13, 14, you just go along with what the other people are doing. You just want to fit in. You want to make sure that your friends like you. So yeah, you’re going to crack jokes, you’re going to laugh along with it. And when you’re a teenager, you’re not really thinking, ‘Oh, I’m being a bully by laughing along with it.'”
Chely Wright says she has been bullied since coming out and is hopeful the situation will soon change:
“Since my coming out, I’ve been bullied. I was bullied in school, of course not for being gay, because I hid until May of this year the fact that I’m gay. But since my coming out, yes, I have been bullied. And it doesn’t feel good.”
Project Runway star Tim Gunn, who once considered committing suicide, adds:
“I felt desperate enough that I wanted to end my own life. And I’m very lucky that my suicide attempt was not successful.”
Can I just say that I HATE LARRY KING, the way he talks is so weird, when he says “personally share their PERSONAL STORIES OF PAIN AND HEARTACHE” I want to stab him in the throat. Also he said five people hung themselves in a week which wasn’t true.
Anyhow once i got over that, this was a great roundtable, so many inspirational things were said. Whenever Kathy Griffin gets serious, you know shit is serious.
I don’t even get why he’s on the air anymore. He’s like eighty billion years old and an extremely shitty interviewer. And, yeah, way to show compassion to that grieving mom, asswipe.
Annnnnyway.
I wish Anderson Cooper or Joy Behar had hosted this episode instead. Larry King is an unfeeling robot with no understanding of the gravity of the subject matter. He phones it in every single night and this is too serious to treat like every other autopilot night of his show.
Like Riese and Jess have mentioned, Larry King is a horrible moderator for a round table like this. He truly is an unfeeling robot, especially when it comes to issues this sensitive. However, the discussion coming from the guests was excellent. I love it when Kathy gets serious.
Though I enjoyed the LKL interview, It could have been alot more articulate. I feel like alot of questions werent answered.
Id like to talk about the pastor that condemned homosexuality then was caught having gay sex (was he molesting boys?). That man is not a christian. Christians love God and love their neighbor. When you walk into a church, no matter who you are, you should immediately be welcomed, feel loved, and feel accepted. If thats not the case, then that is not a church but a building full of hypocrites.
Larry King’s creepy.
On a positive note, Kathy Griffin was very articulate. she did a great job.
And I am so glad Lance Bass was there to say what he said. It’s brave of him to admit and important for him to say that he once bullied gay kids. Awesome. Well…not awesome that he bullied gay kids..but you know what I mean.
When Kathy said “lets cut the crap” I got goosebumps. It was weird.
ha me too. i think it was her way of undercutting to larry king’s idiotic questions. kathy ftw
The LA Trevor Project office is ten minutes away from my house. Anyone else?? See you ladies there. :)
You know, we say there were 6 gay teens who committed suicide in a month…those are only the ones that grabbed the headlines. Statistically, it HAS to be far more than that.
In 2005 (the most recent and coherent stats I could find in an ultra-quick google search), 4212 kids killed themselves. That averages out to at least 350 a month. If you go by the really anemic estimates that queers make up a mere 1% of the population, then between 3-4 a month are gay kids. However, that’s assuming that gay and straight kids are equally predisposed to suicide – and statistically, they’re 4 times more likely to at least attempt it. One would then go on to believe that their ratio of success would correspond. Now we’re looking at an average of 12-16 kids killing themselves every month.
Extrapolate that out further to include suicides of children who were not known or discovered to be gay, which is immeasurable. How many kids are out there who are contemplating suicide simply because they’re terrified simply that they might be gay in the first place?
And as I look now through the various sites dedicated to recognizing, preventing, and treating at-risk teens, virtually NONE mention anything geared towards LGBQT youth. Zero. Not even a mention that they might be more predisposed to all the other warning signs pointing to depression and suicide.
It’s as though they don’t even acknowledge gay teens exist at all. Where’s the outreach?
Oops, should have read yours before making my comment below. Sorry!
I doubt gay kids killed themselves with any greater frequency this month than they do any other month. Why do people suddenly give a shit?
election time
NOTES on larry:
#1 He had a hard time remembering to include transgender which bothered me
#2 larry asked every guest WHY — which is asking the oppressed why they let pple oppress them instead of asking the offenders to get their shit together and STOP oppressing pple!
WANDA: was there weird tension b/t kathy and wanda?
overall: kathy ftw
Agreed on #2. Why won’t anybody get in straight people’s faces and demand to know why? As for your other points, I don’t own a TV and haven’t watched the stuff in 2010, and Larry King ain’t gonna make me start, so I can’t say.
#2 made me want to scream obscenities at the computer screen. Gyahhh.
I find hilarious that the same people who have made a career of bullying (Wanda Sykes and Kathy Griffin)now are speaking against it. Their kind of comedy is insulting and bullying other people. You can’t wrap yourself in indignation and morality when you are one of those examples.
I agree! Perez Hilton is another example. He posted a ‘It Gets Better’ video. Yet his site (and the idiots who post there) exemplify the nastiness of online bullying.
It’s also hilarious that gay celebs like Wanda, Chely and Lance who have remained in the closet until they’ve made their money are getting on their soapbox.
Ironically, Kathy – who paid for her big fucking house with the pink dollar – was the most articulate.
I couldn’t even watch this due to Larry King’s craggy-ass voice. I wanted to throw the computer across the room just to make it stop.
Chely chose to be honest. She did not choose to be gay. She chose to be HONEST in her life in order to live a free, full, peaceful, happy, enjoyable life. No one has to agree with it. They just have to respect it and accept it. Any person, regardless of their career, has the right as a human being to be happy. To live freely. This is America. She should be commended for taking such a leap of faith and a chance to risk some of the things in her life she values such as her music and her career to step forward and be THAT honest. That takes a tremendous amount of courage for any person but more so for any person whose career can be affected by losing anyone that already believed in her. She is still the same person. The same wonderful human being she has always been. Her music is still great music. None of that has changed and people’s perceptions of her as a human being should not change because she is choosing living life to the fullest and happiness to be a part of her every day life. We all have the right to be happy and live full, honest, happy, enjoyable lives. Every human being has a heart filled with feelings and that ought to be considered by folks too. Her career does not change the fact that she is a very real, living, breathing, human being.
Bullying needs to STOP!We have no right to judge anyone. None. Freedom of speech, yes, it exists. How people choose to utilize it though is part of the problem in this society. No one has to agree. They can reciprocate respect and live their lives and allow others to be free to live their own lives.
If people just stopped hating and treated others how they too want to be treated the world would be a happier and safer place to be. A much bigger scale of freedom for all of us to enjoy!
Ugh, Larry King.
I LOVE Tim Gunn!