Nathan Lane recalls his mom's devastating reaction to him coming out as gay — and his pithy response
Nathan Lane recalls his mom's devastating reaction to him coming out as gay — and his pithy response
Raechal ShewfeltTue, April 21, 2026 at 11:39 PM UTC
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Nathan Lane appears on SiriusXM's 'The Howard Stern Show'Credit: Cindy Ord/GettyKey Points -
Nathan Lane says that he told his mother he was gay just before he moved to New York to act.
The star of The Birdcage and dozens more projects recalled in an interview with Howard Stern that his mother said she would prefer he "were dead."
In the moment, Lane quipped, "I knew you'd understand."
Nathan Lane will always remember the heartbreaking experience of coming out to his mother.
"I didn't want to tell her, but before I left, we had been through so much together and, you know, I had never lied to her, and so I sat her down and said, 'Look, I know you think I've been seeing a girl, but actually, I've been seeing a guy,'" Lane said Tuesday on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show.
She said, "'You mean you're a homosexual?'" Lane recounted. "And I had never heard it put that way. And I said, 'Yeah, I guess so.' And she didn't say it in a vindictive or angry way. She said it with a sort of sadness, 'I would rather you were dead.'"
To that, Lane thought fast and responded, "I knew you'd understand."
The Only Murders in the Building actor, 70, told Stern, "You have to understand this is another generation. And that was, you know, this was not a sophisticated person in that way."
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The Emmy winner, who has acted professionally since the early '80s, said the conversation was the hardest thing he had done at that point.
"I felt like I needed to do that. I needed to be honest with her, right?" Lane said. "Because, I guess, I felt on some level she might understand, but she didn't."
He pleaded with his mother not to tell his brothers, Bob and Dan, because he wanted to share the news when it felt right.
"And then she immediately called them and told them. So I had to deal with that," Lane said. "And so my brother Dan, you know, was a teacher, and we had a long walk and talk and he was very understanding, and yet I think he felt probably in some way that he had failed me. You know, he did ask the typical question of 'Do you think it's maybe just a phase?' And I said, 'No I don't think it's a phase.'"
Nathan Lane in 'The Birdcage'Credit: Frank Trapper/Corbis via Getty
His other brother "didn't seem to care," Lane said. "He was like, 'I love you no matter what.'"
Lane came out publicly in a 1999 interview with The Advocate, three years after his memorable turn as a gay man in the 1996 Mike Nichols-directed comedy The Birdcage, alongside Robin Williams and Gene Hackman. He was inspired by the upsetting story of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, who had been murdered for being gay.
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