In a move that’s equal parts eyebrow-raising and heartwarming, 83-year-old media titan Barry Diller—yes, that Barry Diller, former CEO of Fox, Paramount, and the guy who basically invented modern media mogul-dom—has finally said it out loud: he’s gay.
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In a deeply personal and candid essay for New York Magazine ahead of his upcoming memoir Who Knew, Diller unpacks decades of speculation about his sexuality and his storied marriage to legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. And if you thought the truth would be simple, buckle up: this is a love story layered like a couture gown and just as iconic.
“While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman, and she didn’t come into my life until I was 33 years old,” Diller writes, sparing no detail or emotion.
For anyone who’s been paying attention to gay lore, whispers about Diller’s sexuality have long been background noise. And yet, he’s never publicly labeled himself—gay, bisexual, pansexual, none of it. In fact, in true European fashion (and very on-brand for a man married to the queen of the wrap dress), Diller wrote, “sexual identities are much more fluid and natural, without all those rigidly defined lanes of the last century.”
Let the record show: Barry Diller isn’t trying to fit himself into your neat little box. He’s already lived outside of it—and fabulously, might we add.
Love, Actually
The Diller-von Furstenberg saga is the kind of complex, passionate, we’ll-figure-it-out-as-we-go relationship that feels straight out of a James Ivory film. They met at a high-society gathering in 1974—he was already the head of Paramount, she was still married to Austrian royalty—and their first interaction was a wash.
“She looked through me like cellophane,” Diller recalled, “and I left that night thinking that after her casual obliviousness and Egon’s put-down, nothing could ever induce me to see either of them again.”
And yet, nine months later, a dinner invite turned into flirtation on a distant sofa, which turned into a makeout session “like teenagers.” Sparks flew, diamonds were gifted (in a Band-Aid box, no less), and an on-and-off romance that defied easy labels was born.
By 1981, they had split. By 1991, they were back in each other’s orbit. And in 2001, they finally married.
So why now? Why come out at 83? Why pull back the curtain on a life lived so openly… and yet so quietly?
The Cost of Silence
“I’ve always thought that you never really know about anyone else’s relationships,” Diller wrote. “But I do know about ours. It is the bedrock of my life.”
Before meeting von Furstenberg, Diller cruised West Hollywood, navigated the underground gay scene, and spent a formative summer retreating from Fire Island Pines out of sheer overwhelm. In the era he came of age—pre-Ellen, pre-Will & Grace, pre-Grindr—the cost of honesty was often everything.
“I wouldn’t do a single thing to make anyone believe I was living a heterosexual life,” he said, but added, “I was only afraid of the reaction of others.”
Let that line settle: “live with silence, but not with hypocrisy.” That’s not just a memoir quote—it’s a mantra, one that likely speaks to generations of queer people who did the math between truth and survival, and chose to lie low.
And yet, the love between Diller and von Furstenberg was real. Is real.
“We weren’t just friends. We aren’t just friends. Plain and simple, it was an explosion of passion that kept up for years.”
Yes, they were once caught mid-romp by David Geffen (as one does in the ’70s). Yes, Richard Gere dated Diane post-breakup while Diller was producing American Gigolo (messy!). But that ferocity never faded, and their love story was never a smokescreen.
Diane von Furstenberg herself addressed the revelations with typical grace:
“All I can tell you is Barry and I have had an incredible life, love for 50 years. We have been lovers, friends, married, everything. And, you know, for me, the secret to honor life, and to honor love, is never to lie. Today, he opened to the world. To me, he opened 50 years ago.”
A Coming Out with Complexity
This isn’t the neat, triumphant Pride Month coming-out story you might expect. There are no rainbow flags waving in the background, no viral TikToks, no hashtags. It’s quieter, more textured, more human. It’s a reminder that queer stories aren’t always linear, or label-friendly. Sometimes, they’re Band-Aid box diamonds and wrap dresses. Sometimes, they’re a billionaire and a princess, a sofa in the Dakota, and a decades-long devotion that breaks all the rules and still wins.
Diller’s Who Knew—out May 20—is poised to be more than a memoir. It’s a time capsule, a confession, and maybe even a gentle challenge to the way we define queerness, love, and legacy.
So yes, Barry Diller is gay. He’s also a husband, a lover, a power player, a late bloomer, and an old-school romantic who’s finally stopped “putting his sexuality in a distant box.”
And honestly? That’s queer culture at its finest.
Source: NewYork Magazine
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