Late Pee-wee Herman star Paul Reubens came out as gay in a posthumous documentary. “I was secretive about my sexuality,” the actor reportedly said.
The actor known for portraying the iconic Pee-wee Herman TV and movie character came out as gay in his posthumous HBO documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Thursday night, according to a report by Page Six.
“[It was] self-hatred or self-preservation,” Reubens reportedly told director Matt Wolf in the two-part documentary, adding, “I was conflicted about sexuality. But fame was way more complicated.”
Reubens — who died in July 2023 at the age of 70 following a private battle with cancer — added that he had been “secretive” about his sexuality, even with his friends.
Paul Reubens — who played the zany, red bow-tied manchild Pee-wee Herman for nearly four decades across multiple shows and movies — has died. He was 70. https://t.co/zeeXuVDwA2
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 31, 2023
“I was out of the closet, and then I went back in the closet,” the Pee-wee’s Big Holiday star said, “I wasn’t pursuing the Paul Reubens career, I was pursuing the Pee-wee Herman career.”
While the actor never fully came out about his sexuality while he was alive, he reportedly had a boyfriend named Guy — who eventually died from AIDS complications — before his career in Hollywood took off.
“To talk about seeing someone at death’s door. He probably died a couple hours after that,” Reubens said while recalling visiting Guy in the hospital while he was on his deathbed.
Reubens also reportedly admitted in the documentary that had gone on to have “many, many secret relationships,” but that he ultimately “hid behind an alter-ego” and never told anyone that he was gay, as he was focused on putting his Hollywood career before his love life.
“The pressures of concealing Reubens’ true self resulted in a scandal that unraveled his entire career,” Page Six reported, noting an incident in 1991 in which the actor was arrested at an adult movie theater and charged with indecent exposure.
Reubens also recalled the incident in the documentary, saying, “I kept who I was a secret for a very long time. That really backfired when I got arrested. People had never seen a photo of me other than Pee-wee Herman. And all of a sudden, I had a Charlie Manson mugshot.”
“I lost control of my anonymity,” he added. “It was devastating.”
Reubens’ PR team then reportedly staged a paparazzi photo of the Pee-wee’s Playhouse star on a date with a woman at a Los Angeles restaurant in order to quell the negative headlines. But the actor’s reputation never fully recovered.
“It’s shocking what horrible, awful stuff people think about me,” Reubens said. “It’s still a significant footnote — 30 years later, I still feel the effects all the time.”
File/American actor, screenwriter, and producer Paul Reubens is Pee-wee Herman on the set of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, directed by Tim Burton. (Photo by Barry King/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
Then, nearly a decade after the indecent exposure incident, Reubens was in the headlines again after his home was raided, resulting in him being charged with possessing images that were believed to be child pornography.
Reubens insisted the photos were “vintage erotica” that could also be found in college libraries. He also noted that he was a collector of rare memorabilia. While the charges were eventually dropped, the actor pleaded guilty to a lesser obscenity charge.
In 2010, Reubens had a small comeback starring in The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway, and then again in 2016, when he starred in the film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.
In the HBO docuseries, Reubens reportedly explained that he wanted to make the documentary “for people to see who I really am, and how painful and dreadful it was to be labeled something I wasn’t — to be labeled a pariah, to have people be scared of you, or untrusting.”
But text messages between the actor and Wolf revealed that Reubens had stopped replying to the director after he was asked about the issues involving obscenity, Page Six reported.
After that, Reubens never ended up sitting down for a follow-up interview, but the documentary acknowledged that his health had also begun diminishing around that time — a detail that Wolf and the rest of the production crew were not aware of until after he had died.
In the end, the actor sent a final audio message to Wolf, stating, “My whole career, everything I did and wrote, was based in love.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
