Rachel Maddow still regrets the way she came out as a lesbian, said Lloyd Grove in Newsweek. “I was a freshman [at Stanford University], and had just figured out I was gay,” says the MSNBC host. “There was nobody else ‘out’ in my class of more than 1,000 people—which was kind of crazy.” So together with a friend who was coming out at the same time, Maddow gave an interview to the student newspaper about being the only two gay freshmen on campus. “The mistake I made was that I had not come out to my parents.” Maddow asked the paper to hold off publishing the piece until after the weekend, so she could go home and tell her mom and dad she was gay. “They ran it before the weekend, and some anonymous person mailed it to my parents.” Her Catholic parents were shocked and upset. “First, they were having to deal with the fact I was gay. Second, that I’m gay in the newspaper. And third, that they’ve raised [a] horrific rug rat who would tell the newspaper before her family.” Maddow’s parents are “wonderful now, and couldn’t be more supportive.” But she still hasn’t forgiven herself for how she handled her public coming out. “More than 20 years later, I feel acutely angry for having put myself in that position.”
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