The first openly gay presidential candidate to viably compete for the Democratic nomination was interviewed by an LGBTQ media personality on MSNBC Monday night — and they tackled coming out. Presidential hopeful and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg…
The first openly gay presidential candidate to viably compete for the Democratic nomination was interviewed by an LGBTQ media personality on MSNBC Monday night — and they tackled coming out. Presidential hopeful and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg told Rachel Maddow why he came out at 33, and what it was like to accomplish so much while he was living in the closet.
“You went through college, and then the Rhodes scholarship process, and getting the Rhodes scholarship, and going to work for McKinsey, and joining the Navy, and deploying to Afghanistan, and coming home, and running for mayor in your hometown, and getting elected before you came out at the age of 33,” Maddow, who said on the show that she was the first openly gay person to receive the prestigious scholarship at Oxford, told Buttigieg.
Acknowledging it was a “difficult question,” Maddow said she was not saying it was a “bad thing” Buttigieg didn’t come out until he was 33. “I think it would have killed me to be closeted that long,” she continued. “I just wonder if that was hurtful to you? If it hurt you to do it?”
“It was hard, really hard.
