Bill de Blasio’s wife came out to the world as a lesbian in the ’70s — but he had to learn about it first through friends.
Chirlane McCray, 58, kept her sexuality a secret from de Blasio, 52, when the couple first started dating — despite having published an essay titled “I Am a Lesbian” in 1979, she told Essence magazine yesterday.
“Other people told him in the beginning,” McCray admitted. “Then at some point, I gave him the article and said, ‘Look, this is who I am, and you should read this.’ It shook him up. But he didn’t show it. He was cool about it.”
In the current interview, she discusses the moment she met de Blasio in 1991, while the two worked for the city. She was wearing a nose ring and African garb and liked his sense of humor, she said.
“He had the love-at-first-sight experience,” she said.
She also dodged the questions about bisexuality — saying she hates “labels” — which she’s been doing since the couple first publicly discussed the story in December.
Asked if she’s still attracted to women, McCray said, “I’m married, I’m monogamous, but I’m not dead, and Bill isn’t either. ”
She said meeting de Blasio simply shook up her ideas about “the form and package love comes in,” she said.
McCray wrote the then-controversial 1979 essay, also in Essence, to dispel the myth that there are no gay black people.