Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons ‘comes out as gay’

News outlets are reporting that Jim Parsons, who stars as Sheldon Cooper in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, has come out as gay in an article in the New York Times.

However, others point out that the 39-year-old actor was not in the closet to start with! According to Pink News, the “revelation” of Parsons’s sexuality was “added towards the end of [an] article” in the New York Times that discussed his playing a gay man in the Broadway play, The Normal Heart. Page 3 of the New York Times article states that, “The Normal Heart resonated with him on a few levels: Mr. Parsons is gay and in a 10-year relationship, and working with an ensemble again onstage was like nourishment, he said.” Contact Music, meanwhile, asks the question, “Was Jim Parsons ever really in the closet?” And a message posted in the Pink News Comments section points out that Parsons “was never in. He proposed to his boyfriend last year at an a[w]ards show, that might have been a hint that he was gay!” Parsons has starred in The Big Bang Theory since 2007, and his character Sheldon Cooper is one of the five main characters in the show. Normality In April, Paul Iacono, the actor who plays RJ Berger in the MTV comedy series The Hard Times of RJ Berger, and can soon be seen starring in Kenzie’s Scale, came out as gay during an interview in Village Voice with Michael Musto. The Normal Heart is an autobiographical play written by Larry Kramer, the American author and playwright. According to an “exclusive” in the Hollywood Reporter, a film version, of the same name, directed by Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck, Glee) and starring Parsons and Mark Ruffalo is currently in pre-production and is scheduled for a 2014 release. The full New York Times article on Jim Parsons – “Stalked by Shadows (and a Rabbit)” – can be read here.