In a new cover interview, Ross Mathews
says that the LGBT community has a problem with flamboyant men.
The 39-year-old Mathews rose to fame as
an intern for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He currently
hosts a podcast and appears as a judge on VH1's RuPaul's Drag
Race.
Speaking with UK LGBT glossy Attitude,
Mathews said that TV executives are “still a little wary of putting
really flamboyant gay men on television.”
Mathews said that he's received hate
mail from “homophobic straight people” and from the LGBT
community.
“I got a ton of hate from the gay
community too because at the time – and to an extent now – there
was a lot of thinking that if you're flamboyant, you're setting the
movement back by not being 'passable,'” he
said.
“That has happened throughout my
life: not only do I not fit in with the straight community, but then
within my gay community, I need to tone it down because I’m the
‘wrong kind of gay.'”
“We cannot do that as a community. We
need to celebrate each and every one of us,” he added.