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Celebs Who Came Out In 2018

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Five entertainers spent 2018 rewriting how Hollywood talks about sexuality — on magazine covers, on Twitter, and in one case, mid-apology.

Nicki Swift’s rundown of “Celebs Who Came Out In 2018” zeroes in on a run of high-profile disclosures that landed within months of each other — a Grammy-nominated singer on the cover of Rolling Stone, a Broadway lead clarifying himself on Twitter after an awkward on-camera moment, a pop star walking back a controversial single, and a folk-pop songwriter turning a Pride poem into a real conversation about his marriage. None of these were vague hints or coy Instagram captions. Each one came with specifics, and each one changed how fans understood careers that had already been public for years.

• Janelle Monáe told Rolling Stone in April 2018, timed to her album Dirty Computer, that she identifies as pansexual and queer, describing herself as “a queer Black woman in America” with relationship history involving both men and women.
• Lee Pace clarified his sexuality on Twitter in March 2018 after a February interview tied to his role in Broadway’s Angels in America put the question on the table publicly.
• Rita Ora addressed backlash over her May 2018 single “Girls” — featuring Cardi B, Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX — with a personal statement acknowledging relationships with both women and men.

Janelle Monáe’s Rolling Stone Moment

Monáe’s disclosure wasn’t a throwaway line — it arrived as the centerpiece of a Rolling Stone cover story built around Dirty Computer, an album already loaded with queer imagery and themes. She told the magazine she’d previously identified as bisexual before settling on pansexual as the term that fit, and she framed the announcement as inseparable from her identity as a Black woman navigating fame on her own terms. The timing mattered: it gave the album’s most political material a direct, on-record context instead of leaving fans to read between the lyrics.

Lee Pace Sets the Record Straight

Pace’s path to going public looked nothing like a planned rollout. In February 2018, while he was starring in the Broadway revival of Angels in America, an interviewer’s question about his sexuality landed awkwardly, and the exchange got attention for the wrong reasons. Rather than let speculation sit, Pace addressed it directly on Twitter the following month, stating plainly that he’s a proud member of the queer community — closing the loop on a story he hadn’t chosen to tell in that moment on camera.

Rita Ora’s “Girls” Fallout

Ora’s situation played out in public in real time. When “Girls” dropped in May 2018 with Cardi B, Bebe Rexha and Charli XCX on the track, critics — including some of the featured artists’ own fanbases — accused the song of trafficking in queerbaiting. Ora responded with a personal statement rather than a corporate non-answer, saying she’s had romantic relationships with both women and men and that the song reflected her own sexual fluidity rather than a marketing angle.

“I consider myself to be a free-a** motherf*cker.” — Janelle Monáe, Rolling Stone, April 2018

Tessa Thompson and the Monáe Connection

Two months after Monáe’s cover story, Tessa Thompson gave Porter magazine her own confirmation in June 2018, telling the outlet she’s attracted to both men and women. The interview also touched on her close creative partnership with Monáe, the two having collaborated on visuals tied to Dirty Computer — a connection that made Thompson’s timing feel less like coincidence and more like two artists’ stories running in parallel. At the time, Thompson was riding high off Thor: Ragnarok and Westworld, giving the disclosure a bigger stage than it might have had a year or two earlier.

Jason Mraz’s “Two-Spirit” Revelation

Mraz’s version of coming out started with a poem. For Pride Month in June 2018, Billboard published his piece ending on the line “I am bi your side” — a wink that read as more than wordplay once he sat down with the publication the following month. In that July 2018 interview, Mraz confirmed he’s had romantic experiences with men, and shared that his wife has described his identity as two-spirit, a term he embraced rather than deflected. It fit a pattern this list kept repeating among musicians that are nothing like they seem on the surface of their public image.

What ties all five together isn’t a single press strategy — Monáe used a magazine cover, Pace used Twitter, Ora used damage control, Mraz used a poem. But each disclosure came with real specifics attached to a real date in 2018, which is exactly why Nicki Swift built the list around them instead of reaching back to earlier, already-settled stories like Troye Sivan’s 2013 announcement.