After nearly six months of silence and plenty of unanswered questions, Andrew Gillum alongside his wife, R. Jai Gillum had a sit down with TV host Tamron Hall to discuss the night of the hotel scandal and everything that’s happened since. In the process, Gillum revealed something that he’s never shared publicly before; that he identifies as bisexual.
Tallahassee’s ex mayor, who had taken a close loss in the run for Florida’s governor back in 2018, took the world by shock when he was found drunk and unconscious in a Miami hotel room with two other men. It was later reported that one of the two men was a gay escort.
Pictures later revealed drugs scattered all over the room along with a substance that police suspected to be meth. Gillum denies taking any drugs that night and admits that he simply had too much to drink after going through a depression preceding his loss in the governor election. It was then that he made a public statement stating that he was himself into a rehab facility for alcohol abuse and asked that we respect him and his families privacy during this time.
Nonetheless, the public wasted no time in trying to put the pieces together and many speculated that he was lying to his wife and the world about his sexuality. During his interview on the Tamron Hall showm it was for the first time that that Gillum spoke on the allegations of him being gay.
“What was most hurtful was this belief that I was somehow living a lie in my marriage and in my family because I believe we are all entitled to mistakes and I believe we’re entitled to those mistakes without having every other respectable and redeeming part of our lives invalidated. I felt like the love that I have between my wife and I, my family, but most important the authenticity that I tried to lead with was all in question at this point. Something else had been assumed about that and to be very honest with you I don’t identify as gay but I do identify as bisexual.”
In the interview we are told that Gillum’s wife, R. Jai knew of his sexuality and knew well before they got married. She goes more in depth saying, “love and sexuality exist on a spectrum.” Her only concern was “what’s between us and what agreement do we make to be in a relationship with each other.”
During the interview, Gillum speaks on the aftermath following the night of the hotel incident and admitted that what helped him through the backlash was “the grace that I received from my wife.”
Gillum met his wife of 11 years at FAMU where they attended together and were both active in their student body. They now are parents to three children, Jackson (6), Caroline (6) and Davis (3).
In looking towards the future, Hall ask’s Gillum if he feels he still has a chance at a career in politics in which he responds “I do, if I put my mind to that.” While he acknowledges that it would be difficult, he feels there’s plenty of current elected officials who have done worse than his own personal mistakes.
What are your thoughts on all this, #gayes? We’ve waited so long to get the scoop and now the news is out! Did we expect this ending or was this something completely out of left field?
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