5 Famous Gay Couples In History

5 Famous Gay Couples In History

Gay marriage may be something new to Americans, but that’s just the formal side of it. Some of the world’s most famous people have been gay, and had loving partners they spent their lives with. Perhaps it’s because we are so scintillatingly intelligent and brilliant. Hold that thought. Let’s look at the evidence.

1. Noel Coward

The playwright, singer, actor Noel Coward had a legendary talent for flamboyancy and wit. He also made no pretense of being butch, although his gaiety was never mentioned publicly.

His relationship with Graham Payn began when he cast him into one of his shows. Not sure if he used the famous “casting couch”, although the two did settle down into a lifetime relationship that lasted decades.

2. Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian artist with an unerring ability to single out good-looking guys as models. He also had a habit of accepting boys as students when they were hardly into adolescence.

One of these was Francesco Melze whose aristocratic father seemed happy with the arrangement. Melze and Leonardo lived together all their lives, with the youngster featuring in a number of erotic drawings.

3. J. Edgar Hoover

Although J Edgar Hoover had a reputation of being a hard man, there was a softer side to him. The first director of the FBI lived with his mother from the day that he was born until she died, and stayed on in the house. In later years, he shared his home with Clyde Tolson – a relationship that contemporaries described as brotherly. 

Quite some brotherly love, given that they never dated women, collaborated at work and spent their leisure time together. The government must have approved of the idea. They gave the flag that covered Hoover’s casket to Clyde Tolson after a state funeral.

4. Roman Emperor Hadrian

The Roman Emperor Hadrian was quite a guy. He rebuilt the Pantheon and made a wall across the United Kingdom. He was also immensely rich, and could handpick his male slaves. Historians say he loved them all, until his eyes fell on a gorgeous fourteen-year old called Antonius, whom he adored.

So much so that when he died prematurely, Emperor Hadrian declared him a god, and named the city of Antinopolis after him. There were no objections.

5. Alexander The Great

Alexander the Great, who was perhaps the most famous soldier of them all. He was a handsome fellow, and his men literally worshiped the ground he walked on. He chose a school chum Hephastion to be his second-in-command and primary lover. 

They slept in the same tent with not a murmur from his troops. At the peak of Alexander’s power, Hephastion died in battle. The general was inconsolable, and died of grief within six months.