In May, after decades of speculation about his sexuality, American businessman Barry Diller wrote about his relationships with other men in his memoir, Who Knew. It was (sort of) news to the world — but it wasn’t news to his wife of 24 years, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. In a new interview with Variety, von Furstenberg spoke about her husband for the first time since his memoir came out. When asked what it’s like to be “a woman married to a man who’s gay,” she replied, “What’s the difference?” Exactly!
The reporter explained that many women “wouldn’t want” to be married to a gay man, but von Furstenberg objected. “But it doesn’t change anything. I’m sorry — it’s a stupid question,” she said. “I married two gay men, OK? I don’t know why, but to me, they’re not gay, so it doesn’t make any difference.” (Her first husband, Prince Egon von Furstenberg of Germany, with whom she shares two children, referred to himself as bisexual in 1973.)
Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››
Von Furstenberg said she and Diller have openly discussed his sexuality from the moment they got together in 1974. “For 50 years, I was the only person he opened to,” she explained, adding that Diller “turned out to be my soulmate.” (A New York piece from 2001, published shortly after their wedding, described Diller as “often referred to as bisexual” but noted that “he has lived most of his adult life as a more or less openly gay man.”) “I was interested in being a good friend; I never thought it would be anything else,” von Furstenberg said. “Then it turned to passion. He was very insistent.”
In his memoir, Diller wrote that his first date with von Furstenberg ended with their “making out like teenagers,” and a week later, he felt “as if a giant tectonic plate in my life had shifted.” They took a ten-year hiatus from their relationship from 1981 to 1991 but have been together ever since. Sounds like they’re doing something right.
