Nathan Lane: Robin Williams protected me from being outed, he was a saint
Sophia Bowman
Updated on March 07, 2026
You know how people always ask which celebrity death you still feel? Robin Williams is right up there for me. Next year will mark 10 years. And when I read stories like this that little hole in my heart gets a little bigger. In 1996, Nathan Lane starred with Robin in the American film version of La Cage aux Foulles called The Birdcage. I love The Birdcage. Granted, not all of it has aged perfectly, but what they did with both the original stage play and film, for the time, was a treat. Robin and Nathan played married nightclub owners who pretend to be straight in front of right-wing conservatives and potential in-laws Gene Hackman and Diane Wiest. Over the weekend, Nathan told Willie Geist that at the time, he had not come out yet. While Nathan’s sexuality was a bit of an open secret, he had not said anything officially. However, due to the nature of the film they’d just made, he realized he might get asked questions he wasn’t ready for. Before an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Nathan told Robin he was scared of being outed. When his fears started being realized on national television, Robin redirected the conversation to protect Nathan. And now I need a tissue to dab my eyes.
Nathan Lane is looking back at how the late Robin Williams shielded him from having to publicly disclose his sexuality during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
In a new interview with Willie Geist for Sunday TODAY, Lane, 67, recalled how he “wasn’t prepared” to discuss being gay during a 1996 appearance on the talk show. The duo was there to promote their 1996 film The Birdcage, in which they portray a couple. At the time, Lane wasn’t ready to open up about his personal life.
“I don’t think Oprah was trying to out me,” Lane told Geist. “I said to Robin beforehand, ‘I’m not prepared. I’m so scared of going out there and talking to Oprah. I’m not prepared to discuss that I’m gay on national television. I’m not ready.’”
Instead, the Lion King star was hoping to focus on the triumph of scoring the iconic role, in which he portrayed a gay man who performs in a Miami drag club owned by his partner, played by Williams.
“I certainly wasn’t ready to go from table-to-table and tell them all I was gay. I just wanted to talk about I finally got a big part in a movie and I didn’t want to make it about my sexuality, although it was sort of unavoidable because of the nature of the film and the character,” Lane said, looking back. “I just wanted to do good work, and I hoped that people would like it.”
But during the show, Lane and Williams both recognized that Winfrey was beginning to inquire about whether the former was gay in real life.
“She was like, ‘How come you’re so good at that girlie stuff? Are you worried about being typecast?’” he said. Williams, however, was able to redirect the conversation. “And then Robin sort of swoops in and diverts Oprah, goes off on a tangent and protects me because he was a saint.”
“Robin was just the greatest person, just such a beautiful, sensitive soul and so kind and generous to me,” he said. “And it was, you know, it was sort of prescient about gay marriage.”
I did not see this interview back then, but I can picture how it went. Oprah was a different interviewer both on her talk show and in the 90s than she is today. I’m sure Nathan is correct that she wasn’t trying to out him. As I said, there were plenty of assumptions about his sexuality already (not that that makes it okay). Plus, daytime talk shows at the time were only just starting to break away from their sensationalist Q&A format. And Robin was a animated guest so having him jump in and take over was not unusual. He could’ve easily highjacked the conversation and been so entertaining in wherever he took it, there would be no need to go back. And yet, I don’t doubt for a minute that he did it to protect Nathan. If you’ve seen the movie, this story parallels their relationship on screen, making it that much sweeter.
Nathan, I did not realize, married his partner Devlin Elliott in 2018. They’ve been together for 25 years and Nathan came out on his own terms in 1999. Which is how it should be. It’s a big step opening up that conversation and that takes psychological preparedness to get there. Forcing someone’s hand could have repercussions. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like Robin.
Note by CB: I found that interview! It’s queued up to that part.
Photos credit: LOREY SEBASTIAN / Avalon and Getty Images
