In an It Got Better video released this
week, comedian Wanda Sykes says she was helped by Ellen DeGeneres'
public comic out.
DeGeneres' sitcom was canceled in 1997
after she came out on the cover of Time magazine with the
headline, “Yep, I'm Gay.”
“After I saw what Ellen went through,
that made everyone [pause] and go put an extra lock on the [closet]
door,” she said in the 7-minute video.
“I remember conversations about 'Yep,
I'm Gay' and what's she celebrating that for? Why is she on the
cover of a magazine? It was awful.”
“She went through that and look at
her now,” said Sykes.
Sykes came out during a 2008 rally in
support of marriage equality in California.
“What she did definitely helped me to
come out. Not just coming out but just coming to grips with it
myself like, 'Wow, I'm a lesbian.' That was incredibly hard,” she
added.