GMA host Robin Roberts reveals she's gay in thank you letter to fans and 'long time girlfriend'

Good Morning America host Robin Roberts publicly acknowledged that she is gay on Sunday for the first time.

The 53-year-old cancer survivor thanked her girlfriend of ten years as part of a heartfelt end-of-year thank you addressed to fans and loved ones posted to her Facebook.

'I am grateful for my entire family, my long time girlfriend, Amber, and friends as we prepare to celebrate a glorious new year together,' Roberts wrote.

Amber, reports Media Bistro, is Amber Laign, a message therapists who helps patients recuperate from injuries.

Roberts' sexuality has been known to her family, friends and co-workers for some time but this is the first time the television personality has spoken of that aspect of her personal life publicly.

In 2012 Roberts was diagnosed with the blood disorder myelodysplastic syndrome and took a medical leave of absence from Good Morning America.

She returned to the show in February 2013 and won a Peabody Award the same year for Robin's Journey, a series of TV reports that chronicled her battle against MDS.

In the mean time, her letter of gratitude appears at a time when Roberts has quite a bit to be thankful for.

According to the New York Post, the Good Morning America darling inked a new long-term deal with ABC for a reported $10 million and $14 million.

ABC News released this statement shortly after Roberts' post appeared on Facebook:

'We love Robin and Amber, who we have all known for a long time. We were so touched by her Facebook message today and so thankful for all the loving support she has in her life.'

Been that way for a long time, it's only more obvious now.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/05/the-homophobia-of-jack-paar.html

While reading Jack Paar's second book, My Saber is Bent (1961, Pocket Books), my mouth froze agape during chapter fourteen. I assumed the page heading, Fairies and Communists, was a tongue-in-cheek title that one needn't take seriously. This is, after all, a book written by a top television comedian. Instead, what it fed me was hitherto overlooked information about Jack Paar. Granted, this was the early sixties; an era when social morales allowed sexism, racism and homophobia to exist more or less unabated. That being said, there were several people that rejected such offensive conventions and the arts were often far more accepting. This is what makes the stance of Paar, by most accounts an erudite man, all the more difficult...

Fairies and Communists by Jack Paar
There used to be a time when it looked like the Communists were taking over show business. Now it's fairies. They operate a lot alike, actually; both have a tendency to colonize. Just as there used to be no such thing as one Communist in a play or movie, now there is no such thing as one fairy. Where you find one, you usually find a baker's dozen swishing around. I had a little game I used to play when I was an actor in Hollywood, back in the days when Communists or Communist sympathizers were nearly as plentiful in the film capital as yes-men. If I spotted someone in a picture who was a Communist or leftist, I could usually pick out several others. They always came in sets. Now I play it a different way. When I hear that some fairy is producing or directing or acting in a play, I can often name some of the rest of the cast, even if I've never heard it. But Communists and fairies do differ in some respects. The Hollywood Communists had their "Unfriendly Ten," who refused to testify before a Congressional Committee, but the fairies are overfriendly. They do say no occasionally. "When a fairy says no," Alex King has observed, "he almost throws his back out of joint." The poor darlings, as they sometimes call themselves, are everywhere in show business. The theater is infested with them and it's beginning to show the effects. "The New York theater is dying," the late Ernie Kovacs complained recently, "Killed by limp wrists."
The dance is a mecca for the gamboling third sex, which prompted Oscar Levant to observe that "ballet is the fairies' baseball." The movies have long been a happy hunting ground for them, and now they're starting to take over television. No TV variety show seems complete without a group of fairy dancers leaping about with balloons.
George Jean Nathan wrote long ago, "What we need is more actors like Jack Dempsey. Jack may not be much of an actor but his worst enemy cannot accuse him of belonging to the court of Titania." Alas, things have been getting worse ever since.
The increasing emasculation of our stage seems to stem in part from the influence of actors from England, where homosexuality is rampant in the theater. Kenneth Tynan, the British critic, has acknowledged the growth there of the theatrical phenomenon known as "camp" whose distinguishing feature, he says, is a marked inclination toward the dainty, the coy and the exuberantly fussy. "High comedy in England is nowadays hostage in the camp of camp," he lamented. "With each new season its voice gets shriller and its blood runs thinner."
Formerly playwrights were writing plays about fairies and now they're writing plays for them. There was a wonderful scene in Peter Pan when Mary Martin turned and asked the audience if they believed in fairies and they answered with an affirmative roar. I began to get worried when the cast started drowning out the audience.
Not only have homosexuals taken over a leading role in the theater, but the theme of homosexuality is becoming increasingly prominent on the stage as witness Advise and Consent, Compulsion, The Best Man and Tea and Sympathy, some of which have been produced on both the stage and screen. Recently, not one but two versions of the life of Oscar Wilde were showing in New York.
A half century ago Wilde was jailed and disgraced in England for "The love that dared not speak its name," yet today actors found guilty of the same offense become not only famous but honored. One of England's most noted actors and a popular American male singer have both been convicted of homosexuality without it adversely affecting their public lives or careers.
I first noticed the widespread prevalence of homosexuality in Hollywood, which boasted a Fairyland long before it had a Disneyland. Fresh out of the Army, and rather naive, it became as quite a shock to discover that some of Hollywood's biggest he-man stars were actually more interested in each other than in the glamorous actresses they made love to before the cameras. One virile looking Western star was such a gay Caballero that he had to be restrained from riding side saddle. Another gorgeous hunk of man, whom millions of girls sighed over, had his voice dubbed by another actor to disguise its girlish quality. Other male stars, known as AC-DC types, are ambidextrous and can't decide what to do when confronted by "His" and "Hers" towels. In New York they are prominent in all of the arts. They cavort in ballet. They flutter on the Broadway stage. And they are everywhere in television. Wherever there is one you will find others. They are highly organized and indefatigable at assisting each other.
Although fairies are usually cool toward women, for some reason they seem irresistibly attracted to comediennes. Perhaps being a comedienne is unnatural for a woman, like playing the bass fiddle or pole-vaulting, which may be the reason why they have such an attraction for the limp-wristed set. There always seems something terribly sad about many comediennes, for all their talent, as they are almost inevitably surrounded by these demimales. I once mentioned on such famous comedienne to a friend of mine. "She is terribly amusing," the friend said. Then he added, wistfully: "Of course, she has no alternative."
Once Wilson Mizner, the noted wit, was having lunch at a New York hotel with Marshall Neilan, the director. At an adjoining table were several fairies, giggling as gaily as four suburban housewives having butterscotch sundaes at Schraffts. Annoyed by the girlish carrying-on, Mizner began directing audible disparaging remarks at the group. The giggling died away and the group began to direct some cold glares at Mizner and Neilan. Still Mizner continued to aim his loud barbs until violence seemed imminent. Neilan suddenly became philosophical. "Wouldn't it be strange," he mused, "if on Judgment Day it turned out they were right?" I feel quite sure it won't - but that's their problem. I just wish they would leave show business alone, and stop leaping about with their balloons on television.
We occasionally have fashion shows on our program so I've had a chance to observe at firsthand the havoc that limp-wristed designers and hair dressers and make-up men have wrought upon once beautiful girls. When they finish accentuating the hollow cheeks, the pallor and the blue circles under the eyes, the models look less made-up than embalmed. One night a group of them trooped out modeling bathing suits and they were so skinny and unfeminine I thought it was the mile relay team from the YMCA. Gradually I've become so accustomed to seeing these bony, boyish figures that I was pleasantly surprised one night when one model appeared displaying a full-blown figure with ample curves. Later I commented backstage on how rare it was now to see a model with curves. Our wardrobe lady chuckled cynically. "When she took off that bathing suit and dropped it on the floor," she said, "it bounced for five minutes."
Another lovely girl who managed to escape the ministrations of the fairy Svengalis is the 1961 Miss Universe, Marlene Schmidt. She is a tall, ravishing blonde with a figure like God intended woman to have, without alterations by Slenderella or some delicate designer. I asked her measurements and she told me they were 95-45-95! This was in centimeters, it turned out, but even measured in inches her endowments were opulent. The reason she still possessed her naturally lovely figure and rosy-cheeked, healthy face, I discovered, was that she was a recent refuge from East Germany and our fairy fashion fraternity hadn't gotten their clutches on her yet. Because of all this I've started my campaign to save our starving models by sending them CARE packages. For Christmas I plan to send my friends cards with notes saying that donations in their names have been made to Jinx Falkenburg.
I hope that all red-blooded men will rally to my crusade to have girls look like girls again. If we show our determination I'm sure that women will throw off the tyranny of fairy designers. They have nothing to lose but their falsies. Meantime, I must go now and give a blood transfusion to Suzy Parker
- Jack Paar, December 1961, My Saber Is Bent - Chapter 14 - Fairies and Communists (1961, Pocket Books)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.