It started innocently enough with a story about late entertainer/talk show host Merv Griffin, who died this week, at The Hollywood Reporter's web site. It's opening line: "Merv Griffin was gay."

Then things got really interesting. The Reporter pulled the story -- by regular Ray Richmond, who once worked for Merv -- for awhile, then re-posted it under the heading, "Griffin never revealed man behind the curtain." What next? Reuters picked it up in its normal entertainment feed and then, after protests (presumably), it pulled the story, with this explanation: "This was a story from The Hollywood Reporter that ran as part of a Reuters news feed. We have dropped the story from our entertainment news feed as it did not meet our standards for news. GBU Editor."

By this time, of course, Yahoo had carried the story, via Reuters, with the frank headline, "Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual." And a Reuters blog still carried the first two paragraphs, along with reader's comments, such as: "I was just reading the article about Merv Griffin being a closeted gay. Wow! What a way to punch a dead man in the stomach!"

Many obituaries this week had noted, in passing, that Griffin had been sued by men a few years back, one for palimony and the other for sexual harassment, but left it at that.

The story currently posted at The Hollywood Reporter follows. It is currently the #1 most popular story on the site. Hollywood Reporter is a sister publication of E&P.

I loved his show as a child... sad he never came out.
by PROF IKAMONO Aug 12th, 2007
01:55:24 PM

Some people have various personal reasons for staying in the closet, I'm not sure what Merv's were...
But like Liberace, he adamantly stayed in, even when it seemed like only a few tribesmen in the Amazon didn't know...

... and I'm not even really sure those tribesmen didn't know...

You'd think on his deathbed he could have acknowleged his lover at least...

...said something about the man who stood faithfully by him...

In the early ninties gay folksingers romanovsky and phillips wrote a verse about him:

There's a former host of a talk show

As gay as the day is long.

But he always sang the wrong pronouns

When he opened with a song

Well it's true he might lose a few fans

But he'd gain one more in me

If he just wouldn't try to live the myth

Of heterosexuality

But in a larger sense, the coverage of Griffin's life after his death represents a lingering double standard that plagues reports about gay public figures. No doubt out of sympathy, the mainstream press usually defers to celebrities and other public figures when it comes to reports about a closeted same-sex relationship.

So all too often, the public only learns about a public figure being gay when they're caught up in scandal. Reports on Merchant and Sontag ignored their long-time lovers, but slap Merv Griffin with a palimony suit from his horse trainer and the press pack is finally ready to ask "the question."

This double standard doesn't just come to life in a public figure's death, either. The media turned a blind eye for years to Mark Foley's long-term relationship with a Florida physician, so the public learned the Florida congressman was gay from graphic IM chats he had with pages. Former Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe skated by the same way, until allegations from pages surfaced against him, too.

Singer George Michael lost a longtime lover to AIDS and even dedicated a CD to him, but the media left the subject of his homosexuality alone until he was arrested for offering sex to an undercover cop in a public toilet.

You get the picture.

Singer George Michael lost a longtime lover to AIDS and even dedicated a CD to him, but the media left the subject of his homosexuality alone until he was arrested for offering sex to an undercover cop in a public toilet.