Portia De Rossi On Why She Used To Be ‘Closeted’; Rupert Everett Says Stars Shouldn’t ‘Come Out’

Portia de Rossi is happy, in love, and married to her sweetheart, Ellen DeGeneres. But in 2003, she was terrified of being asked about her personal life, because at the time, she was “closeted.”

On Friday’s “The View,” the actress revealed that she was thankful for a well-placed fire alarm during her last appearance on the chat show – in 2003.

“The most interesting part of this for me was that I, at the time, was very closeted and very, very afraid that one of you would ask me about my private life,” Portia told the ladies. “So I was sitting here very nervous and then, from what I remember, somebody maybe asked me something about my private life or were kind of getting into that realm and then, like divine intervention… the alarms went off and I didn’t have to answer.”

The Australian-born actress revealed she kept her sexuality a secret in the past because she was worried about her professional life.

“It took me quite a while [to come out] because I was one of those actors who was very afraid that my career would be over,” she said.

When asked if she thought former “Family Ties” star Meredith Baxter, who came out publicly as a lesbian to Matt Lauer on “Today” earlier this week, will affect that actresses career, Portia said she didn’t know.

“It’s hard to say,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m going to be affected by [my decision to come out]. Right now I’m employed on [ABC’s ‘Better Off Ted’] and I love my show and I’m a straight character and I have romantic interests on the show with men and it seems to be going OK.”

In fact, another gay actor, Rupert Everett, who starred in 2000’s “The Next Best Thing” with Madonna, recently told the U.K.‘s Guardian newspaper, that he thinks actors shouldn’t come out at all if they want to do best by their careers.

“It’s not that advisable to be honest. It’s not very easy,” he told the newspaper in an article published late last week. “And, honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out.”

Rupert went so far as to say coming out could stall an actor’s career.

“The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn’t work and you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point,” he said. “You’re going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they’ll cut you right off… The fact of the matter is, and I don’t care who disagrees, it doesn’t work if you’re gay.”

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