Cynthia Nixon drew ire from some members of the gay community when she made a statement in an interview with the NY Times a week ago that claimed that being gay, for her, was a choice. She said “for me, it is a choice. [to be gay] I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.” Cynthia, 45, has been with her same sex partner, Christine Marinoni, for nearly eight years. Prior to that she was with a man for 15 years.

In a later interview with The Daily Beast, Cynthia clarified that she’s probably bisexual but doesn’t like to call herself bisexual due to negative stereotypes surrounding that term. She said “I just don’t like to pull out that word. But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her.” It really seemed that Cynthia was going to stand her ground and not change her position on the matter, because she was adamant about it. She went on to say that “I don’t feel the need to cede the definition of what a gay person is to the bigots. They don’t get to define who I am.”

Well it looks like she has given in somewhat, or at least she’s rethought her public stance on it. She made a statement to The Advocate that she’s bisexual, not gay, and that’s not a “choice” for her to be bisexual, it’s a choice for her to be in a gay relationship.

“My recent comments in The New York Times were about me and my personal story of being gay. I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can’t and shouldn’t be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering. However, to the extent that anyone wishes to interpret my words in a strictly legal context I would like to clarify:

“While I don’t often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have ‘chosen’ is to be in a gay relationship.

“As I said in the Times and will say again here, I do, however, believe that most members of our community — as well as the majority of heterosexuals — cannot and do not choose the gender of the persons with whom they seek to have intimate relationships because, unlike me, they are only attracted to one sex.

“Our community is not a monolith, thank goodness, any more than America itself is. I look frward to and will continue to work toward the day when America recognizes all of us as full and equal citizens.”

[From The Advocate]

As I said in our earlier coverage on this, it’s a shame that the word “bisexual” has such negative connotations, and that it’s been vilified by both sides of the aisle to suggest that bisexual people are somehow fickle or “switch hitters” or will get with “anything that moves.” There are people who are just born being attracted to both sexes, just as there are people who are born being attracted to just one sex. It kind of makes me sad that Cynthia just didn’t come out as bisexual. I’m also disappointed that she had to work so hard to clarify her comments, which she very clearly stated only applied to herself. If she wants to call herself gay because she’s in a relationship with a woman I feel that’s her right even if it’s not technically accurate. She’s been with her partner for so long that it makes sense that she’s self identifying as gay. Are we going to take that away from her because she’s famous and was once married to a man?

Cynthia Nixon is shown on 1/26/12 at the opening night for her play Wit. She’s playing a cancer victim and went bald for that role

Yesterday there was a lot of debate over comments that Cynthia Nixon made to the NY Times in which she asserted that it was her “choice” to be gay. Many gay people find those remarks potentially damaging to the gay community, as they can be misused to make the claim that all gay people “chose” to be with same sex partners. Well Cynthia did make the distinction that her comments only applied to her situation, and I thought she made a good case. She said, in part, “they said [the remarks in a speech I made imply] that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.” Fair enough, but a lot of people wonder why Cynthia doesn’t self identify as bisexual if she feels that it’s her “choice” to be with a woman instead of a man. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Cynthia kind-of explains that.

You’ve been quoted as saying about these two relationships in your life: “In terms of sexual orientation, I don’t really feel I’ve changed … I’ve been with men all my life and I’d never fallen in love with a woman. But when I did, it didn’t seem so strange. I’m just a woman in love with another woman.” I’m a bit confused. Were you a lesbian in a heterosexual relationship? Or are you now a heterosexual in a lesbian relationship? That quote seemed like you were fudging a bit.
It’s so not fudging. It’s so not. I think for gay people who feel 100 percent gay, it doesn’t make any sense. And for straight people who feel 100 percent straight, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t pull out the “bisexual” word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals.
But it is the “B” in LGBT.

CN: I know. But we get no respect

You just said “we,” so you must self-identify as one.
I just don’t like to pull out that word. But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met Christine and I fell in love and lust with her. I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt…

Look, I understand for political reasons why some people want to kind of squelch this idea that being gay might be a choice, because a lot of the rights we want are posited on the supposition that why are you denying me my rights any more than if I were created a different color? But I don’t feel the need to cede the definition of what a gay person is to the bigots. They don’t get to define who I am.

[From The Daily Beast]

I like that she’s asserting that she can call herself gay if she wants, and that no one else can tell her who she is. I also get how this can really piss off gay people, because it can be a hard fight for some people to be accepted for how they know they were born. It seems sad that being bisexual is still a dirty word today, especially for men. I wish there was greater acceptance that our sexuality is on a continuum and that there are people in the middle. It was refreshing when Anna Paquin came out as bisexual, because it was just so rare to hear.

Cynthia is also bald as a badger (I’ve never heard that phrase before, but google suggested it and I thought it was cute.) She’s starring as a cancer victim in the play Wit. Instead of just wearing a skull cap, Cynthia really did shave off all her hair. She told The Daily Beast that she doesn’t like her new look. “I think I look like Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort. Or maybe Nosferatu.” Cynthia is a breast cancer survivor after being diagnosed with early stage cancer almost five years ago. She seems to have beaten it with a lumpectomy and she still takes Tamoxifen.

Photo from ABC via OMG!. She is shown with hair on 12-13-11 credit: WENN.com

Cynthia Nixon gave a surprisingly intimate interview to The New York Times a few days ago. Do you know how much I like Cynthia? She’s awesome. I would love her alone for her commitment to public education, but whenever I read one of her increasingly rare interviews, I like her even more. Anyway, you can read the full NYT piece here - Cynthia talks at length about her experiences as a child actor, how she transitioned into an adult actor, her stage work and finally, her lesbianism… or bisexuality? Cynthia has had long-term relationships with both men and women, and Cynthia considers herself a lesbian by choice. Here are some highlights:

Getting Sex & the City at the age of 30: “Nobody ever really thought of me as sexy, right?” she said wryly when we sat down earlier to talk. “They thought of me as smart and quirky. For a while I was waifish, and then I was smart and quirky, and then when I was like 30 I was cast in ‘Sex and the City.’ Thirty seems young to me now, but at the time 30 seemed to be kind of getting old, so it was this amazing confluence of events where I, who had never really exercised, never really worn heels, was in this thing that was about sex and grooming and your body. I might have just gone from waifs to old ladies, but I had my bombshell period in there, my unexpected bombshell period.”

Kids: Nixon is a mother herself; her two oldest children are Samantha, 15, and Charlie, 9. Their father is Daniel Mozes, a classmate of Nixon’s at Hunter College High School, where he now teaches English. The couple never married and split in 2003. As Nixon has grown older, she has allowed herself to start coloring outside the lines. A year after splitting with Mozes, she began a relationship with Christine Marinoni, now 44, whom she met while campaigning to increase financing for New York City public schools. With the help of a male friend Nixon will not identify, Marinoni conceived a child. She gave birth to their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, on Feb. 7, 2011.

Her mid-life change to lesbianism: “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

[From The New York Times]

CB pointed out that Cynthia might be in the middle of the Kinsey scale, which means that her sexuality can easily go from men to women, and that people on the far ends of the Kinsey scale don’t have a choice when it comes to sex of their partners. That could be the case with Cynthia – she could just be one of those people who are like, “I just fall in love with whomever I fall in love with, men, women, no matter.”

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Last week, Cynthia Nixon and her partner, Christine “Rojo Caliente” Marinoni announced that Christine had been pregnant all this time and had just given birth to a son. They really kept the whole thing under wraps, but now that little Max Ellington is here, Cynthia and Rojo have no problem sharing their joy. They released this wonderful photo that is so full of ginger, it should be against the law. Max is going to look like Prince Harry, you know it.

Baby in the city. Cynthia Nixon, 44, and fiancee Christine Marinoni released the first picture of their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, yesterday.

Marinoni, 43, gave birth to the babe last Monday, and the couple, who began dating in 2004 and announced their engagement in 2009, have not made public any details of the baby’s biological father.

Nixon has two children — Samantha, 15, and Charles, 8 — from her previous relationship with Danny Mozes.

“Maybe I’m just lucky, but I feel like Christine is so amazing with our kids — because they’re our kids,” the Sex and the City star told The Advocate last year. “I feel like falling in love with her is part of being amazed at how she makes our family so much better.”

[From Us Weekly]

Congratulations to the happy family! I kind of like the way Cynthia and Rojo did it – keeping the pregnancy quiet, but being open about the baby when he came. It’s nice.

Additional pics by WENN.

At this point, Michael K’s name for Christina Marinoni is so ubiquitous, I can only think of her as Rojo Caliente. Anyway, Cynthia Nixon and her partner, Rojo, have welcomed a son into their family. Apparently, Rojo got pregnant and she gave birth yesterday. Did anyone know that she was pregnant? I had no idea. They really kept that under wraps. Cynthia and Rojo named the boy Max Ellington… a nice little hipster name.

It’s a boy for Cynthia Nixon and Christine Marinoni!

Marinoni gave birth to the couple’s son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni, on Monday, Feb. 7, Nixon’s rep confirms.

“Christine and baby are doing great,” her rep tells PEOPLE.

Nixon, 44, and Marinoni, 43, began dating in 2004 and announced their engagement in 2009. The Sex and the City star has two children, Samantha, 14, and Charles, 8, from her previous relationship with photographer Danny Mozes.

[From People]

Congratulations to Cynthia and Rojo! Miranda was always my favorite – the most realistic of all of the Sex and the City characters. And Cynthia played her perfectly – although I think leaving her male partner and hooking up with Rojo (who was Cynthia’s jumpoff, if you remember) probably meant that Cynthia’s public image took a hit. I remember the promotional rounds for the two Sex and the City movies – Cynthia barely spoke, barely gave any interviews. It’s like if “mainstream America” realized that Cynthia was romantic with Rojo – to the point where they’re raising three kids together now – would kill the romance of SATC. Dumb! Cynthia is a really cool chick, and I’m betting that Rojo is pretty awesome too.

UPDATE: CB wanted me to point out that it’s not that Cynthia was “hiding” her relationship with Rojo – she wasn’t, and she did give a few interviews, including a major one to The Advocate, during the SATC 2 promotional rounds. My take was just that it seemed like Cynthia was kind of pushed aside and passed over in favor of the heterosexual SATC ladies, at least as far as media went.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

The Sex and The City ladies are continuing their tour promoting soulless conspicuous consumption and offensive throwaway plot lines. They were seen in Japan toasting their fat paychecks and fabulous outfits. Despite the terrible reviews and mediocre box office performance the show must go on.

Earlier today we reported that Sex and The City 2 was second at the box office this holiday weekend. When Monday was included, the film was actually third, with Shrek 4 in the lead and Prince of Persia second. Kaiser pointed me to this amusing recap of the Memorial Day box office results on Gawker, which makes the scary conclusion that we may be in for yet another Sex and The City if the numbers are right. I’ll quote from Box Office Mojo on how the movie performed as expected for a sequel, especially one as shabbily made as this:

Sex and the City 2 notched an estimated $37.1 million four-day weekend on approximately 6,100 screens at 3,445 locations, bringing its total to $51.4 million since its Thursday debut. That’s a huge step backwards from the first Sex and the City, which bagged $57 million on its first three-day weekend and had $68.1 million by day five. Distributor Warner Bros.’ exit polling indicated that a whopping 90 percent of Sex 2′s audience was female, and 54 percent was under 35 years old. By comparison, the first Sex’s opening weekend audience was 83 percent female.

Prince of Persia and Sex and the City 2 ranked a lowly 15th and 17th, respectively, among Memorial Day opening weekends and, in terms of estimated attendance, they wouldn’t even crack the Top 25. Based on their content and marketing, though, it would have been unreasonable to expect otherwise.

People seem to lose their heads in regards to sequels, but, aside from aberrations like The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Sex and the City 2 was closer to the way sequels are supposed to behave, though the movie’s marketers exacerbated the situation with a severe case of “sequelitis.” They assumed that the brand name was all they needed for another summer hit, delivering an utterly inessential and random sequel after the first movie tidily wrapped up the storylines. It’s a wonder that they didn’t subtitle the movie “The Legend of Carrie’s Shoes.”

[From Box Office Mojo]

I’ve passed a lot of time laughing at the terrible reviews of Sex and The City 2, with my favorite coming from Dustin Rowles at Pajiba. He likens SATC to Transformers 2 for women, but with designer duds instead of Megan Fox’s bouncing butt. There were so many excellent lines in his review it’s hard to know which ones to quote. My favorite was this one, “There’s a definite narrative pattern in SATC 2: Each of the four women does something banal individually, followed by a scene in which they get together and process that banality, usually while drinking and wearing something colorful or with feathers.” Kaiser’s favorite part was this:

If you were so inclined, there’s a lot you could take offense to here: Their disrespect of the culture, the extravagance they are afforded (they each get their own luxury car and their own butler), and the way they choose to comport themselves — not just in Abu Dhabi, but in the entire movie — while the country is mired in a recession. Is it tactless to release a movie that glorifies consumption during hard economic times? It seems like a petty complaint to lob against a Hollywood movie, which are often about wish fulfillment. But it’s an easy critique to offer up. Most offensive of all to me, however, were the groan-worthy puns and the hideous word play littered throughout the film (“Abu Dhabi Doo!” “Bedouin, Bath and Beyond,” “Lawrence of my Labia”).

[From Dustin Rowles at Pajiba]

So have you seen Sex and The City 2 and was it a semi-pleasurable way to waste two and a half hours? Could you turn off your brain and just drool at the shoes and clothes? Like men looking for T&A, there are much better ways to get some (online) than paying someone $10 to deliver it to you with a thin plot. I like my shoe and fashion porn silent.

Note: The term “Dog and Pony Show” is not meant as a negative reference to any of the actresses’ features. It’s meant as a traveling circus, and according to Wikipedia “The term has come to mean an elaborately staged performance, presentation, or event designed to sway or convince people. It is often used in reference to a series of informational events put on by a company or group.”

The ladies of Sex and The City 2 were on The View on Friday and I finally had a chance to watch it. There’s still all this hype around the movie, with audience members holding signs and Elisabeth Hasselbeck declaring “the girls’ night out is reborn!” Given all I’ve heard about it, I would rather sit home and watch whatever happens to be on television while getting my fashion fix online.

Sarah Jessica Parker was inevitably asked on The View about her twin girls, Marion and Tabitha, who were born via surrogate about 11 months ago. She talked about how much she loves them and how her son, James Wilke, helps her out with them. She didn’t mention the fact that she has plenty of professional help and she didn’t talk about her husband, Matthew Broderick.

Cynthia Nixon discussed her engagement, to same sex partner Christine Marinoni. She said that they can’t yet marry in New York and that their friends have plenty of suggestions for destination weddings to where same sex marriage is legal. Cynthia said that they were going to try and wait until same sex marriage was legal in their state. “We’re going to try and stick it out in New York and… fight the good fight, but we’re not going to wait forever.” She said something similar to People Magazine, and explained that she’s not spending much time planning out the details and was more concerned with her basic right to marry. New York recognizes same sex marriages from other states.

On The View, Nixon clarified the hilarious quote she told The Advocate that Christine “was like a short man with boobs.” It was about Christine’s fashion, she explained:

“It is a funny and cute quote… I was actually speaking about Christine’s love of clothes, but how difficult it is for her to find suits that she fits into… She wears men’s suits and she’s a little short for a guy. It’s a challenge.”

The girls then all chimed in about where Cynthia and Christine should get married and how they were all looking forward to a trip.

Kim Cattrall ruled out ever married again after having been married three times. She said “I like being single… I’m very much in a work mode. If I was in a relationship it wouldn’t be a happy one, because I wouldn’t be there.” Kim then said “I wish I had a relationship like we [the SATC women] have. We’ve been together 14 years.”

In earlier interviews Kim said that she would be open to doing yet another sequel, but creator Michael Patrick King and star Sarah Jessica Parker separately said that decision wasn’t made yet. The box office will determine whether they’re drive this series even further into the ground. The numbers are in and they’re not as good as the first film, but not bad overall. Over the weekend Sex and The City 2 was second to Shrek 4, in its second week, but above Prince of Persia, which also premiered this weekend. SATC 2 took in $32.1 million its opening weekend, which was below the opening weekend of the first SATC at $56.8 million.

MTV Josh’s Horowitz asked Sex and The City’s Cynthia Nixon for her thoughts on a controversial article in Newsweek. You might remember earlier this month when author Ramin Setoodeh called two different gay actors “queeny” and claimed that out gay actors couldn’t convincingly play straight characters. Glee guest star Kristen Chenoweth and Glee’s creator Ryan Murphy are among the people who spoke out against the piece, with Chenoweth calling it homophobic and Murphy urging a boycott of Newsweek. Nixon has a same sex partner and has been outspoken about the fact that she’s gay and in love with a woman. She similarly condemned the article for its antiquated and damaging stance on gay actors:

I think it’s so horrible and I think it’s really terrific that there has been such an enormous response and so much back and forth discussion about it. And people trying to explain to this gentleman why they’re so upset about what he wrote. I feel like it’s hard enough to encourage people to come out of the closet like it’s not going to damage their careers and when you have someone who is so… it’s not even like he’s just negative. He’s making fun of people in a really cruel way. It’s really set us back 10 years.

[From Cynthia Nixon's interview on MTV's Rough Cut, video above]

I completely agree with Nixon and the more interviews I see with her the more I admire how open and honest she is. This clip was part of MTV’s Rough Cut series, and Horowitz has other interviews with the creator of the series, Michael Patrick King, and with stars Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker. Horowitz asked Catrall about a third Sex and the City movie (video below) and she said she hopes there will be another one and that she’s game for it! “I don’t know if there will be a third. I hope there will be. I think there’s more stories to be told… I think the only way it will continue is if Michael feels that there’s more to be said. I think once we start repeating ourselves then it’s time to say goodbye. Maybe that’s in five years, maybe it’s in ten. Who knows? I hope we can do it for as long as the audience is there.” So Cattrall will take the money with a smile.

In the same series of interviews, creator Michael Patrick King cleared up rumors that Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes were turned down for cameos in the sequel. He said “I didn’t turn down Victoria Beckham and I never turned down Katie Holmes. In fact I bumped into Katie Holmes the other night, and she said to me ‘Tell me that Carrie doesn’t cheat on Big with Aiden.’”

I have to admit that I got the lead for this story when I went over to Perez Hilton’s site to report on the jaw-dropping $20 million offer he’s received. Like I said he gets stories fast.

Cynthia Nixon was always my favorite on Sex and the City. I identified with Miranda – mostly because she always seemed like the most realistic, grounded character, and because our caustic, stubborn personalities were similar. During the television series, Nixon left her long-time male partner and began dating and living with Christine Marinoni. That was six years ago, and now Nixon is The Advocate’s newest cover girl, and she talks about her relationship with Christine more candidly than I’ve ever heard. The full Advocate piece is here, and here are some highlights:

For years, people on the street have been calling her “Miranda,” the cynical, type A lawyer Cynthia Nixon made famous on HBO’s Sex and the City. Six years later, now that she’s come out as gay, survived breast cancer, and stepped up as a marriage equality activist, her fans now recognize her for her.

In her new interview with The Advocate (www.advocate.com), Nixon talks about her slow coming-out after she began dating her now-fiancée, Christine Marinoni. After the couple had spent many months together, the press started speculating about their relationship. Nixon hired a publicist who warned her to stay out of the headlines. Uncomfortable with that route, Nixon soon turned to Kelly Bush, an openly gay publicist. Bush suggested Nixon confirm the rumors, and that is just what she did.

“I was like, ‘Really, we can just confirm?’” Nixon tells The Advocate. “So that’s just what we did. It was so fantastic.”

Freshly out, and with two children from her relationship with Danny Mozes, Nixon integrated Marinoni into her life and her family.

“She’s like a short man with boobs,” Nixon says of Marinoni. “A lot of what I love about her is her butchness. I’m not saying I fell in love with her in a sexually neutral way. I love her sexuality — it’s a big part of what I love about her — but I feel like it was her.”

Nixon’s children also quickly adapted to the new relationship, not that her son’s processing started at school. “His teachers were just so great about it,” Nixon notes, “because they were the first people that started referring to ‘Charlie’s moms,’ which is so lovely, and we really hadn’t done that yet. So Charlie came home one day and he said [to Marinoni], ‘You’re my mommy too!’”

With a healthy family life and having overcome breast cancer, in 2008 Nixon opened up about her battle and her first big-screen nude scene. Showing her breasts, in a big way, was not a political response to the cancer battle.

“They didn’t know about it at the time. Generally, my thoughts are, if they ask me to do [a nude scene], I’ll do one,” Nixon proclaims. “I mean, I won’t do anything, but I feel like if Michael Patrick [King] wants me to do it, there’s a reason he wants me to do it.”

[From The Advocate]

Bless her heart. And I mean that in the honest, go-ahead-girl way, not in the condescending way. Even though I think Sarah Jessica Parker was always more than cool with Cynthia coming out, I always got the impression that other people involved with Sex and the City really just wanted to shove Cynthia in the corner and hope that mainstream America wouldn’t realize that Cynthia was suddenly out of the closet. It’s interesting that Cynthia was allowed – by SATC producers and publicists – to do this Advocate cover interview. I wonder if she’s going to be hidden away for this publicity tour?

Regarding the whole “She’s like a short man with boobs. A lot of what I love about her is her butchness.” I breathlessly await Michael K’s take.

Photos courtesy of The Advocate.

This is barely a story, but I was just enjoying the hell out of the photos. The Sex and the City girls, minus Kim Cattrall, all went to Las Vegas for the Showest Convention, and the photos are priceless. I mean, sure, these are beautiful women. Sort of. I love both Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, and I think they both look great. Sarah Jessica Parker on the other hand… well, the black Marchesa dress is pretty enough, but check out how SJP really feels about these bitches:

Kim wasn’t at the event because she’s doing the play Private Lives in London. And she probably hates these bitches too. No, I jest! They love each other, right? By the way, they’re standing around with an award because they actually won one. SJP, Nixon and Davis picked up the “Best Ensemble” award for this Sex and the City sequel that’s coming out months from now.

Would you like to see what these ladies wore to the earlier Showest event? It might blind you, this bad fashion:

Why would they all choose to wear such ugly prints? Did they talk about it beforehand? What does SJP really think about these prints?

Yeah, I thought so. Can I just say this – I think the promotion of this film is going to be epic. And hilarious, if these photos are any indication. It just feels so forced, like everyone is off their game, big time.

And finally, a little shoe-porn to take us out: