CLEMENTINE FORD COMES OUT （FOR REAL）

YEP, SHE'S GAY! CLEMENTINE FORD COMES OUT (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

There's been some confusion about Clementine Fordlately, with a semi-retraction of her "coming out" inDIVA Magazine. Ford recently told TV Guide that she hadn't "come out" at all, and did not like to "label herself."

Today, she told The Advocate: "I am gay. "I just wanted there not to be this big emphasis on it."

"It’s funny," Ford said of her interview with DIVA. "I was having kind of rough day. My best friend sent me a text saying, 'You have to see this.' So, I went online to see this link and I read the comments and I go, 'They hate me!' When I did the TV Guide interview I was angry because there is the whole perception now that I came out and I went back in. And what upset me was I felt that because I did not 'come out' in that interview, I felt it was unfair to fans that bought the magazine expecting to get a tearful story that says, 'I’m gay.'

"I thought it was misleading, and now because I was upset by that cover, I am apparently back in the closet and people hate me."

Ford with her mother and L Word co-star Cybill Shepherd in December

So it's official: Ms. Ford is a lesbian, but did not feel she had officially "come out" or made a statement like that to DIVA. She opened up toThe Advocate, which gives me the impression she really felt she wanted to be fair to her fans and fans of The L Word, who were confused and upset by the possibility she had been ashamed of her sexuality or had closeted herself in anyway.

"There are people who get it, and get what my original meaning was," Ford told the magazine. "Just as I was talking about storylines being a nonissue on The L Word; it should just be these people are gay and it’s part of life. I think with that article, and what came across as ambiguity, was actually my attempt at making it a nonissue."

"Look, I am gay, and I just wanted there not to be this big emphasis on it."

Some other tidbits from the interview with The Advocate:

On The L Word being groundbreaking:

I was excited to be working. In terms of it being groundbreaking, I think in a way it’s a shame. I don’t think it should be groundbreaking; it should not be made into a thing. There should be gay couples on television and lesbian and transgender people on television. It should be something that is normal. It’s exciting that it was groundbreaking, but now where do we go?

On fans of The L Word:

I had people come up to me and say that it made a difference. Even people who are older than me would come up to me and tell me that to be a character, and come in to the story as someone who has a "stick up her ass" about so many things and the lesbian issue, and then to see that change, was good for them. I do think it’s difficult for a lot of women who have come from certain backgrounds who are expected to have a different life. It’s not easy, and you don’t know where to necessarily put things, and you are not sure and a little timid. I had a lot of people coming up to me telling me that it was nice for them to see someone going through that struggle and figuring their way.

Ford as Molly on The L Word

On talking to her The L Word co-stars about her new gig on The Young and the Restless:

I talk to Kate Moennig all the time, and she was the first person I told. She told me congratulations.

On Prop. 8:

We have all heard it, where people have coined the phrase “straight marriage,” and that is a big thing for me. It’s like, “Why is it different? Get over it.” If you don’t want to have a gay marriage, don’t have one. Don’t marry someone of the same sex, but let me do it if I want to!" Ellen and Portia became poster children for gay marriage because we don’t have a lot of people that are representing this. There are still those walls, and there are those people who say, “Hide who you are. Be careful. Don’t be too gay.” I think a lot of that, and the media feeding into that, is part of the reason that Prop. 8 passed.

Clementine Ford is not only out, but she seems to be proud, too. Ladies, we officially have a new celesbian. Welcome to the club, Clem.

— by Trish Bendix