About.com
June 30, 2007
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30 Days of Pride: Reichen Lehmkuhl
From Ramone Johnson,
Your Guide to Gay Life.
Reichen Lehmkuhl gained fame as the winner of season four of the reality series Amazing Race.
The actor, model has since starred in numerous daytime soaps and has
launched his own flight-inspired jewelry line. We grounded Reichen for
a little Q&A about being an out actor, gays in the military and the
career he lets develop by chance
Has being an out actor helped or hurt your career?
As far
as acting goes, it's helped me out. A lot of people may look negatively
upon an actor being openly gay, but you have to roll with the times and
thank the jobs that are accepting you. Unfortunately, we're not in a
time when a lot of people are accepting of gay actors in feature roles,
but that is changing very slowly and someday you'll be able to be an
openly gay actor.
You'll even be able to talk about it. Imagine that!
Should gay celebrities be outed?
Taking the word
celebrity out of it, I don't think people should be outed at all. It's
a personal decision. You first have to come out to yourself and learn
how to accept yourself. After that you move on to coming out to
everybody else. A lot of people are outed before they even come out to
themselves. It creates a really stressful situation and a lot of
tragedy in someone's life when that happens.
First reality, then soaps, then gays in the military and now your own jewelry line. What's that about?
The
jewelry line was again one of those things that just kind of happened
to me. I became friends with a jewelry designer, Udi Behr, who picked
me out of a modeling lineup. And then one day we were having dinner in
L.A. and he saw my license plate FLYNAKD and he said, That is such a
cool thing, what's that all about? I said it was from pilot training.
He asked if I would ever consider creating a [jewelry] line and calling it Fly Naked? And I said, Sure! The great thing about Loveandpride.com
is they always gives 10 of gross proceeds to charity. So, it was a
natural fit for me because I love giving to charity and I wanted to
give 10 of my line to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which fights the ban on gays in the military.
You just kind of watch out in life and see what comes at you. The more
I keep doing that, the more things just kind of happen for me.
Is that the advice you have for the young gay kids out there that are still trying to manipulate life?
Yeah,
don't manipulate where live goes. Do what you love. Take care of
yourself and really pay attention to opportunities that come to you
because a lot of people let them pass by. They don't realize that if
they would just inquire about things that are coming to them on a
day-to-day basis and pay attention to the patterns it would turn into a
really huge thing. Just tap into it, especially if you like the idea of
it or care about it.
What was going through your head when you filled out the application for Amazing Race?
I wish I could tell you I did an application, but I was in a restaurant
way back and the casting director walked up to me and said, Would you
come in and interview for this show called The Amazing Race? He
asked if I had a partner; someone that looks like me. They told us that
they were going to replace the gay couple they had already picked with
us and the Executive Producer loved the fact that I was a pilot and
that I'd come from the military. They loved that Chip was a Harvard and
Yale graduate. They put us on the show and then we won.
Did you ever think it would lead to roles on Frasier, The Drew Carey Show and Days of Our Lives, to name a few?
Absolutely
not. That stuff just all started to happen. I look for the signs. Like
going into the military was kind of that way. The opportunity was
presented to me because I had a grandmother who was a pilot. She had
flown in World War II and was always talking about the Air Force
Academy. It was a natural progression for me to apply. After graduating
the Academy, the Air Force moved me to Los Angeles. I was walking down
the street in L.A. and someone asked me if I wanted to sign with their
agency to be a model and I was like, Sure. I went ahead and took the
opportunity. I've never forced my career to be what it is. I've always
gone with what felt the best.
Recently one of my readers, who happens to be a veteran, made a
comment that although 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is a hypocritical policy,
it may not be a bad thing because at least it's a step in the right
direction. What are you thoughts on the policy?
I completely disagree. The 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy was a step in the opposite
direction. Before, at least the policy had some integrity. It was a
foul policy, but it had enough integrity to say, We don't want you here
and we're admitting it. Now they're saying, We need you and we want you
here, but we want you to lie about who you are and not talk about it.
As a military community we don't want to admit that we don't want you
here, so we'll make up this rule called 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'
So, our real push is to say to the military, Do you want us here or not?
And if you don't you better say it so everyone can see how ridiculous
you are. The fact of the matter is the military does want us there,
they just hate to admit it. They need us there.
You talk a lot about being gay in the military in your memoir, Here's What We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out in the U.S. Air Force Academy. Do you envision gay people being allowed to serve openly in the future?
Absolutely, it's coming faster than we think. There is absolutely no proof that a
gay person cannot do their job because of their sexuality. The military
continues to fail miserably in providing any reasonable rationale for
the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy or for banning gay people from
serving in the military. The only rationale they keep holding on to is
if they let a gay person serve they might offend the people that don't
want them in the military. It's the same excuse used to keep Black
people out of the military in American history. It's a very lame reason
to keep [people] out.
So, what's your take on Iraq: Stay or retreat while we still have some dignity left?
Retreat while we still have some dignity.
Who's the one person that just doesn't get it?
It's got to be President Bush.
Need I ask why?
You needn't.