Wentworth Miller - Openly gay celebrities - Pictures 

Hollywood is often criticized for its lack of diversity in both race and sexual orientation. And while numerous LGBTQ people have won Academy Awards, no one has yet won an Oscar in an acting category

coming out. In fact, some actors argue that they are only offered certain roles if they are gay. Despite those barriers, these 32 stars are both openly gay and hugely successful.

"American Horror Story" actress Sarah Paulson, who currently stars as prosecutor Marcia Clark on "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson," has seriously dated both men and women, including actresses Cherry Jones and Holland Taylor.

"The Big Bang Theory" actor Jim Parsons came out in an interview with

while working on "A Mighty Heart." He has been with his partner, Todd Spiewak, since 2002.

Grammy and Oscar-winning British singer-songwriter Sam Smith -- seen here in the music video for "Writing\'s On The Wall" from the James Bond film, "Spectre" -- is openly gay. In fact, in February 2016, when he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song, he mistakenly purported in his acceptance speech to be the first openly gay man to ever win an Oscar. He was not.

"X-Men" actress Ellen Page came out as gay in February 2014, during an emotional speech at the Human Rights Campaign\'s Time to Thrive conference in Las Vegas.

"I\'m tired of hiding and I\'m tired of lying by omission," she said.

"Star Trek" actor Zachary Quinto came out in 2011, after playing Louis Ironson in the off-Broadway revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Angels in America."

It was the "most challenging thing I\'ve ever done as an actor, and the most rewarding," Quinto told New York magazine. "As a gay man, it made me feel like there\'s still so much work to be done, and there\'s still so many things that need to be looked at and addressed."

"How I Met Your Mother" actor Neil Patrick Harris married actor-chef David Burtka in September 2014, after more than 10 years together. They now have a son and a daughter.

Frank Ocean, who has written songs for Justin Bieber, Beyonce and Alicia Keys, and is part of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, came out in a candid letter on his blog in 2012.

"The night I posted it, I cried like a f**king baby," he told GQ magazine afterward.

"Hamilton" star Jonathan Groff came out in October 2009 during the National Equality March in Washington. A year later, it was confirmed that he was dating "Star Trek" actor Zachary Quinto. The two are no longer together.

Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Pro

"Hobbit" and "X-Men" actor Ian McKellen came out to the general public on a BBC Radio program in 1988. He has since said that coming out made him a better actor.

that Sam Smith misinterpreted in his Oscars acceptance speech. McKellen said that he sympathized with black actors over the #OscarsSoWhite controversy because he had personally noted the lack of openly gay actors who had won an Oscar for Best Actor. A number of straight men -- like Tom Hanks, Jared Leto and Sean Penn -- had won for portraying gay men on screen, McKellen continued. "What about giving me one for playing a straight man?"

According to the Huffington Post, "Modern Family" star Jesse Tyler Ferguson came out to his parents when he was 14, after getting caught stealing gay porn. In 2013, Ferguson married lawyer Justin Mikita. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner officiated their wedding.

"Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon came out in 2004. She married education activist Christine Marinoni in 2012. Prior to that, she had two children with English professor Danny Mozes.

In a controversial 2012 interview with the New York Times, Nixon said, "For me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it\'s not, but for me it\'s a choice, and you don\'t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it\'s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn\'t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not."

After years of dodging questions on the subject, "White Collar" actor Matt Bomer publicly came out at the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards, while onstage receiving the New Generation Arts and Activism Award for his efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

He married publicist Simon Halls in 2011. They now have three sons together.

Comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres came out publicly in 1997 and, in doing so, some believe she helped change the conversation by both being the first lead in sitcom history to come out as gay and portraying a leading gay character on the hit, "The Ellen Show," as gay. DeGeneres married "Scandal" actress Portia de Rossi in 2008. They have now been together for over a decade.

After much media speculation, *NSYNC member Lance Bass came out in a People magazine cover story in 2006. "The thing is, I\'m not ashamed - that\'s the one thing I want to say. I don\'t think it\'s wrong, I\'m not devastated going through this. I\'m more liberated and happy than I\'ve been my whole life. I\'m just happy," he said.

Bass married artist Michael Turchin in December 2014. Their wedding aired on E! as part of a special, called "Lance Loves Michael: The Lance Bass Wedding." In doing so, Bass and Turchin became the first same-sex couple to exchange vows on television.

"Silence of the Lambs" actress Jodie Foster came out during her acceptance speech for the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award at the 2013 Golden Globes. "I have a sudden urge to say something that I\'ve never been able to air in public," she said.

In 2014, Foster married actress/photographer Alexandra Hedison. She also has two sons with ex-partner Cydney Bernard.

"Star Trek" actor George Takei came out in 2005, during an interview with Frontiers magazine. He also revealed that he and his partner, Brad Altman, had been together for 18 years at that point. The two officially got married in September 2008.

"American Idol" winner Adam Lambert is one of the few openly gay artists in mainstream pop music. In 2015, he told the Huffington Post that he and Sam Smith have "commiserated on how it is to be gay in the media."

Actress Sara Gilbert, best known for playing Darlene on the sitcom "Roseanne," came out publicly in July 2010 while preparing to launch her new CBS show, "The Talk."

Gilbert has two children with her former partner, television producer Allison Adler. They each gave birth to one The two separated in 2011, however, and Gilbert now dates 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry, seen here.

"Scandal" actor Guillermo Diaz has been openly gay for his entire career. As a kid growing up in New York\'s Washington Heights neighborhood, however, he felt compelled to keep his sexuality a secret. And in a 2011 interview with Out magazine, Diaz said that the experience actually helped his career.

"I went to school in the Bronx. I learned to constantly try to cover up the fact that I was gay," he said. "That facade of being somebody I\'m really not just to protect myself definitely helped with acting."

Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for NAACP Image Awards

After years of speculation, TV personality Anderson Cooper publicly came out in an email to Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan.

"The fact is, I\'m gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn\'t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud," Cooper wrote. "In a perfect world, I don\'t think it\'s anyone else\'s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted."

The next day, the New York Times called him " the most prominent openly gay journalist on American television."

Comedian and actress Lily Tomlin is openly gay, despite never publicly calling "a press conference or anything like that," as she told Metro Weekly in 2004.

Tomlin met her wife, writer Jane Wagner, in 1971. The couple officially married in 2013, after 42 years together.

British singer-songwriter Elton John came out as bisexual in a 1976 Rolling Stone interview, when he was 29-years-old and married to a German woman named Renate Blauel. After the couple divorced in 1988, he came out as gay.

John married filmmaker David Furnish in 2014 after gay marriage became legal in England. The couple have two sons and have been together since 1993.

Tony-winning actor Nathan Lane, who is also well known for his roles in "The Lion King" and "The Birdcage," officially came out in 1999. He came out to his family at the age of 21, but told Out magazine that the success of "The Birdcage" kept him from going public with his private life earlier.

"I honestly felt it was not the time to suddenly also come out to America because I felt like I was playing this flamboyant gay character and to loudly come out would somehow overshadow that," Lane said in the February 1999 interview. "Like they would say, \'Oh, he\'s not an actor ... He\'s just playing himself.\'"

Actress Portia de Rossi (now Portia DeGeneres) publicly came out in 2004 about a month after she began dating her future wife Ellen DeGeneres. In a 2013 "Inside the Actor\'s Studio" interview alongside her "Arrested Development" co-stars, she told James Lipton that she broke the news by appearing before the press with Ellen after the 2004 Golden Globes.

"That was the first time that we actually stepped out together as a couple, but for me, it was the first time that I\'d stepped out as a gay woman, really," she said.

"Titanic" actor Victor Garber first publicly came out in a 2012 interview with Forever Young News, when a reporter from the Canadian lifestyle publication asked him about his proudest personal achievement.

"My relationships with my family and my friends," the actor responded. "My companion Rainer Andreesen and I have been together almost 13 years in Greenwich Village. We both love New York."

Emmy Award-winning "Glee" actress Jane Lynch never had a big coming out moment. She simply never denied it.

"I\'m an actor and when people started taking an interest in me, where they wanted to write about me, I didn\'t say I wasn\'t gay" Lynch told Michelangelo Signorile in an interview on SiriusXM Progress. "I have to give kudos to people like Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang and Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O\'Donnell, all of those people who came before and at the height of their career, when they had a lot to lose, stood up and said this is who I am. And the world kind of went [gasps] ... and then, nothing happened. That was really great and they kind of cleared a path for me to just stroll down."

Tony and Emmy Award-winning "Frasier" star David Hyde Pierce came out in 2007 and has been married to his husband Brian Hargrove since 2008. When accepting his Tony for "Curtains" the year after he publicly came out, Pierce thanked his "partner, Brian, because it\'s 24 years of listening to your damn notes--that\'s why I\'m up here tonight."

"Coyote Ugly" actress Maria Bello publicly came out in 2013 by penning an essay, called "Coming Out as a Modern Family," for the New York Times. In it, the actress who has a son with ex-boyfriend, TV executive Dan McDermott, wrote about embarking on a same-sex relationship with her best friend, Clare Munn, and worrying about how the news would affect her career and her son.

When she did finally tell her son, Bello wrote in the essay, he responded, "Mom, love is love, whatever you are."

"So I would like to consider myself a \'whatever,\' as Jackson said," Bello wrote in the piece. "Whomever I love, however I love them, whether they sleep in my bed or not, or whether I do homework with them or share a child with them, \'love is love.\' And I love our modern family."

Tony Award-winning "Good Wife" actor Alan Cumming is openly bisexual and has had long term relationships with both men and women. He married graphic artist Grant Shaffer in 2012.

"I still define myself as a bisexual even though I have chosen to be with Grant," Cumming said in 2013 interview with Instinct. "I\'m sexually attracted to the female form even though I am with a man and I just feel that bisexuals have a bad rap."

Comedian and actress Wanda Sykes came out in November 2008 at a rally for gay rights in Las Vegas, admitting she had never felt compelled to publicly discuss her sexual orientation until the passage of Proposition 8.

"We took a huge leap forward and then got dragged 12 feet back. I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked -- our community was attacked," Sykes told the crowd. "Now, I gotta get in their face ... I\'m proud to be a woman. I\'m proud to be a black woman, and I\'m proud to be gay."

"Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts publicly came out in December 2013 in a Facebook post, in which she looked back on her 2012 struggle with myelodysplastic syndrome and celebrated the 100th day since her life-saving bone marrow transplant.

"At this moment I am at peace and filled with joy and gratitude," she wrote. "I am grateful to God, my doctors and nurses for my restored good health. I am grateful for my sister, Sally-Ann, for being my donor and giving me the gift of life. I am grateful for my entire family, my long time girlfriend, Amber, and friends as we prepare to celebrate a glorious new year together."

Roberts and Amber Laign, a massage therapist, have been together since 2005.

In a 2007 interview on "The Ellen Degeneres Show," actor T.R. Knight said he felt compelled to come out publicly after hearing his "Grey\'s Anatomy" co-star Isaiah Washington call him a "faggot" during an argument with Patrick Dempsey on set, an incident which Washington denies.

"I was under no delusions," Knight told Ellen. "My friends on the set knew. We talked about it. Publicly it\'s not my thing to call up People magazine and be like, \'Hey, you want to know something about me?\' ... I\'ve never been called that to my face. So I think when that happened, something shifted, and it became bigger than myself."

Oscar-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge publicly came out as lesbian at the Triangle Ball in January 1993. The event was an LGBTQ celebration of President Clinton\'s first inauguration. Since then, Etheridge has become a prominent gay rights activist.

Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Family Equality

"Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller publicly came out in August 2013 by posting a letter on GLAAD\'s website. A year later, he told Details magazine that he felt much more "fully expressed" since coming out.

"After \'Prison Break,\' I came to grips with the fact that my public persona was in misalignment with how I actually felt," Wentworth said. "I was out to a handful of people in my twenties, and once I hit 30, I was out to family and friends. But professionally, I was feeding a fantasy. I created this air of \'We don\'t address that thing.\'"

Actor Richard Chamberlain became a teen heartthrob in the 1960s, playing the title character on the medical drama, "Dr. Kildare." He was outed in 1989 at the age of 55 by the French magazine Nous Deux, but didn\'t confirm his homosexuality for another 14 years. Officially, Chamberlain came out to the public in his 2003 best-selling memoir, "Shattered Love."

In a 2010 interview with The Advocate, he then cautioned other leading men from following in his footsteps: "It\'s complicated. There\'s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture... For an actor to be working is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren\'t, so it\'s just silly for a working actor to say, \'Oh, I don\'t care if anybody knows I\'m gay\' -- especially if you\'re a leading man. Personally, I wouldn\'t advise a gay leading man--type actor to come out."

"Watch What Happens Live" host Andy Cohen is openly gay and has been for a while. In a 2012 interview on Current TV\'s "Say Anything!," he told Joy Behar:

"The bottom line is I ultimately got the power through some friends that I came out to then come out to my parents. It was one of the scariest things that I\'ve ever done. I\'ll never forget that day. I left the letter actually out which I didn\'t mean to, and my mom found it ... The letter was to a friend of mine in London who I came out to ... she [his mother] came and said \'I think you have something to tell me.\' I said \'I don\'t want to tell you,\' and she said \'you have to,\' and I said \'well, you know.\' She said \'you have to say the words so that you can say it. So I said it, I\'m crying, crying, and about an hour later she said "you know I would have hated your wife anyway."