Enquirer Doesn't Ask, Just Tells

National Enquirer (March 22, 2010) passive-aggressively outs The Hurt Locker's Jeremy Renner (cleverly playing on his military role by invoking "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as how he is living his life) in a new story, which quotes a former acting coach as saying:

"I have never had the pleasure of meeting Jeremy's boyfriend, but the fact that Jeremy is gay has never been a primary concern."

The mag's only other "evidence" comes in the form of quoteless insinuations that he's a "song-and-dance man with an affinity for show tunes," has a "passion" to become a makeup artist and is less interested in tough roles than he is in landing "more emotionally complex parts." Oh, that and the fact that he  once told producers of a Jeffrey Dahmer movie that he "had no problem acting gay."

I know what you're thinking... 

Oh, and he took his mom to the Oscars. (Okay, this is a lot of circumstantial evidence! Or, if you prefer, this is a lot of circumstantial evidence!)

I find all of this especially interesting because the tabloids seem so reluctant to out entrenched stars, yet do seem to target newcomers from time to time to out—which is what this is, because they're going out of their way to use a quote from the hometown acting coach that was published elsewhere so could easily have been ignored. (P.S. It's clear Enquirer didn't get that quote directly from the coach, but Google shows no reference to it appearing anywhere. Perhaps they got it from a sneaky stringer?)

But as for some National Enquirer-style sleuthing (hey, they have often been right!) of my own, I noticed that when Meredith Vieira teased Anthony Mackie about all of his hugs with Renner at the Oscars (which by the way, I didn't take as gay-baiting so much as I thought she was joking that she was interested in him romantically, so didn't want the competition), she asked, "Do I have reason to be worried?"

Man-sized love

Mackie said, "Not from me. No reason." Not from me.

Also, when it was rumored that Renner had hit on Jessica Simpson at the Oscars, he went out of his way to deny the story to Us, which is out of the ordinary. (Though I can't blame him—my immediate thought when reading that he'd been after her was, "Yuck!")

His quote? "I'm not a ladies' man. I'm a working man! That's all."

No matter what the truth is about his sexuality, he doesn't seem uptight about speculation...and seems to have a lot more humor than his serious air suggests.

Comments

[Bears Are Fat]

You didn't mention Colin Farrel's very flirtatious monologue about him at the Oscar's ('only spooning').

[jcksincty]

Wow. That didn't take long.

[rickster]

if they are going to out somebody the least they could do is out somebody i have actually heard of.

and that is cute.

[peterparker]

I hope he is gay. He's HOT!

[Jason]

Too bad Mackie's not the gay one. Yum.

[Jay]

If this is true - and it's not the first I've heard it about him - I just hope that Hollywood treats him no differently and he continues an upward trajectory. He's talented and seems like one of the rare nice guys in this town.

[communist]

All this gay "outing" sounds strangely like mcCarthyism and outing communists.

Replace "gay" with "communist" and then review this issue and the outing/baiting of Massa etc.

[Marcus]

Matt, I have heard that he was gay going back to his SWAT days. To be honest, the word is the same with Mackie.

The good thing I've noticed is this isn't a shock to anyone, if you look closely, at least to me, it makes sense.

Why the Enquirer refers to it as a 'Secret'--I don't know.

[David Ehrenstein]

I've met both him and Mackie. I certainly hope he's gay cause he's a Babe-and-a-half.

(Mackie's straight.)

[Strepsi]

You also forget the weird "Inning" of him by director ben Affleck in the Oprah special -- which he then un-does! Ben says something like, "A lot of chicks throwing themselves at you now?" and Jeremy says "I receive a lot more attention from women and men now". Which all could mean that he's gay, that he's very straight but gay-positive, or that he's bi, or that he does in fact get hit on a LOT by guys. It was an interesting little moment. But hey, he's a good actor and a cutie, so we'll take him.

[Kevin]

I was sure that he was secretly hooked up with Bigelow. HA!

I think he's cute in a Steve Zahn kind of way. Sexy? Not the first person that comes to mind, but once you examine a little closer...mmmmm,yeah.

[Vincent]

I hope this is the last post on Renner's sexuality.

[paully]

Are you sure you are gay? C'mon! Don't be so stupid...check out the 4:40 mark in this video. Even Ben is surprised Jeremy is so open about his sexuality. You could see the surprise in his face like "are you sure you want to do this in homophobic Hollywood?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZsp4We9bQ

[Bossy Bottom]

Matt, you really must be gay. You say "yuck" to Jessica Simpson? John Mayer says she's "sexual napalm," which I take to mean, "she's hot." Personally, I think John Mayer is the hottie.

[Rak]

Is there a double standard in the reaction to Renner's gay rumors compared to Sean Hayes' decision to come out ten years later? People seem glad that Renner is rumored to be gay but a lot of bile is spewed towards Hayes for taking too long to come out.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Rak: Renner is JUST NOW on the gaydar and may or may not actually be gay; right now, I think people are pleased someone who's been gossiped about seems cool with it. Hayes everyone knew was gay but he refused to confirm it or talk about it in any way, instead saying stupid shit about wanting to preserve his mystery as an actor (NO actors have that mystery...the best actors are so famously good that they're known actors, yet we still go along with them in movies). He was extremely obnoxious about being professional closeted.

If Renner does that, I'm sure there will be a snark attack at some point! :)

[rjp3]

zack sure does look uncomfortable with that gay dude grabbing on him