In the wake of a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a teen in 1999, director Bryan Singer has remained quiet, in hopes he won’t detract from his upcoming film, “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”
But shortly before news of the lawsuit broke, the filmmaker, 48, sat down for an interview with Out magazine in which he discussed the nuance of a person’s sexuality and why he had a hard time coming out.
“I’m quite bisexual,” he told the magazine. “In the last five years, I’ve had two girlfriends — one for two years, one for eight months.”
“If you look at the Kinsey Report, human sexuality is so complex,” he added. “And the reason I’ve never talked about it to the press — until now — is because sexuality is so complex. To have a real conversation about it, you really want to have the person you’re talking to in front of you.”
But while he may have dated women, Singer does say he sees himself ending up with a man.
“In the end, it’s probably going to be a guy,” the director said. “I emotionally lean towards male relationships, so I’m happy to say I’m gay, too, if it’s a one-syllable, easy answer.”
This openness to the complexity of human sexuality is why the director feels he never never had a “coming out” moment.
“On ‘Usual Suspects,’ I had a boyfriend on set, and it didn’t even occur to me to not have him be affectionate,” he says. “I remember Gabriel Byrne said, ‘I really admire how comfortable and open you are,’ and I thought, really?”
Shortly after that, the director started seeing himself referred to as “openly gay director Bryan Singer.”
“I was like, oh, OK. That was easy.” He shrugs. “I came out by osmosis.”
In April, Singer was sued by Michael Egan, 31, who accused the director of sexually abusing him at a number of parties in Encino, Calif., and Hawaii when he was still a teenager.
On Tuesday, Buzzfeed reported that a 2003 deposition called part of the lawsuit into question, namely whether or not Egan had been in Hawaii in 1999.
While the interview took place before the allegations became public, Singer declined to address it when asked for comment by Out. He instead referred to his public statement from last month in which he called the lawsuit, “outrageous, vicious and completely false.”