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In the 80s, Us Weekly outed Johnny Mathis w/out his consent and he received death threats for years after—causing him to become very private. He is Black & Choctaw and from San Fransisco and his parents were super supportive of him being sexually fluid, which is just cool as hell https://twitter.com/meakoopa/status/1303107247950749697
When he was 16, he went to his dad and was like “people are talking about how I’m gay and I totes am” and his pops was like “son, I’m your dad and I know these things”.
Pure!
Pure!
Can you imagine being Black AND Native AND gay in the 50s?
Toupees and hair pieces for men weren't uncommon back then, but Johnny Mathis always sported his own mane, which grew in voluminousness with his glistening talent because--HELLO--Black and Choctaw.
THIS IS HIM AS A BABY
Ok, I'm sorry, but one more fact about his adorable parents is that they ran his fan club for him and wrote all the letters to fans by hand. Ok. Gay Black-Native Labor Day Trivia is now over.
For anyone interested, this is an interview he did 2 years ago (he's 85 at the end of this month!!). He's so adorable and delightful and I'm glad he was able to move on from the awful Us Weekly incident and reclaim his own narrative again. https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/aug/04/johnny-mathis-rarely-used-it-to-open-up-but-now-hes-more-forthcoming/
His parents, Clem + Mildred, were both poor domestic workers. Clem, who had also been a musician for a time, bought a piano for Johnny when he was young, not factoring in that it wouldn't fit thru their apartment door. So he disassembled it, took it inside, & reassembled it again
I know I said I was done BUT there are so many stories of showbiz parents who became very jealous and vindictive because their own careers never panned out(Judy Garland comes to mind). And it's so pure to me that his parents always just seemed jazzed to be there.
