James Haven‘s relationship with his dad has really transformed.
One week afterAngelina Jolie‘s older brother came out as gay, he shared a glimpse into their dadJon Voight‘s reaction in the wake of their yearslong estrangement.
“There was a long period of time—we didn’t talk for many years—of a lack of value that I felt from him,” Haven shared in the Aug. 12 episode of theAll Out with Jon Deanpodcast, noting that hearing from his dad nowwas “just surreal to this day to me ’cause I kept waiting for this phone call.”
He noted that theTransformersactor called him over and over again after his Substack announcement, which came more than a year after he and wifeRomi Imbellifiled to annul their seven-month marriage.
“This is mind-blowing,” Haven recalled. “I don’t know how he processed it. He said he read the thing I wrote. I finally picked up the phone after like 15 minutes of trying to call me.”
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Angelina Jolie’s Brother James Haven Comes Out as Gay After Breakup From Wife Romi Imbelli
“He goes, ‘So, I finally know who you are,'” he continued. “I was like, ‘Yeah. OK.’ And all of a sudden, we had like this really nice chat and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.'”
The 44-year-old admitted that he hadn’t expected the call to go so well given how complicated his relationship with Voight was, with whom he was estrangedfor six years until 2007.
“My upbringing was very difficult and he knows it,” he explained. “We’ve come a long way. But I think that the biggest issue that I dealt with in my relationship with him for the longest time was a value issue. It’s really simple.”
“I just felt, at so many times,” Haven continued, “whatever it was that I was, I just felt a lack of value to him.”
So, he was shocked to see how much his relationship with the Oscar winner had changed.
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“Decades after a really tough upbringing and really tough teen years and really tough feeling no value, all of a sudden, somehow him saying that was like, ‘Oh my gosh,'” theStay Aliveactor shared. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was waiting and then he just kept talking about it and, ‘Now I understand why you’ve been so private.'”
Haven is now focusing on prioritizing who he is in this new chapter.
“I lost my life in this process up to this point, so I’m tired of that,” he emphasized. “I want a life now. I want to actually live a life. I want to be happy. I want to be me. I want to be joyful. I want everyone to know who I am, so I’m not hiding anymore.”
As Haven explores his newchapter, keep reading for more celebs who’ve shared their own coming out journeys.
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“I came out when I was 17 but I didn’t understand at the time what a big deal that was,” she told People in October 2023. “I didn’t understand why that was scary.”
“Of course there was a lot of positivity and love and acceptance but then there was a lot of negativity, and I did lose a lot,” she continued. “I didn’t care, and I still don’t care [about] the things I lost and the people that I lost and if I lost a chunk of fans…because it’s who I am.”
“My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and my own sexuality,” she revealed to Variety in October 2016. “I always hated the word ‘bisexual,’ because that’s even putting me in a box. I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl.”
She continued, “Also, my nipple pasties and s–t never felt sexualized to me. My eyes started opening in the fifth or sixth grade. My first relationship in my life was with a chick.”
“Telling your family is a huge, huge deal,” the White Collar alum, who shares three kids with husband Simon Halls, previously told OUT Magazine. “I really view my life as divided between the time before I told my parents, and the time after. And the decisions I made, and the life I lived, before and after, are vastly different. It’s night and day.”
“I was scared of flamboyantly gay people because I was taught that,” she told Rolling Stone. “[I realized] people hate flamboyantly gay people because it just exudes femininity, and people hate women. Just little things like that, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is just so f–ked.'”
“It took a lot of unlearning, and there’s still things I”m still confused about, and [it’s] why I feel so uncomfortable being gay sometimes,” she continued. “I don’t get why this is such an issue for me. It shouldn’t be, but something’s just going on and I need to just accept that.”
“I’ve been keeping it kind of private,” she said in the August 2023 episode, “because it is a bigger story and a bigger conversation because I’m dating a girl.”
“I think it was always a whisper in me that just got louder and louder,” she continued. “I didn’t really know to pay attention to it. When this happens there’s some shame attached to it and I had to a little bit navigate through that shame; what is it, where is it coming from.”
“All of a sudden, I had these people around me who were either nonbinary people, trans friends, or lesbians,” she told Billboard months later, “and I was like, ‘I feel so happy when I’m with you guys. And I also really want to call myself a lesbian when I’m around you.’”
“In what will come as a shock to exactly zero people, I’m using the last day of PRIDE to come out!” she wrote in a June 2024 Instagram post, wearing a tank with the word “Queer” printed on the front.
“Be proud of who you are, little babies! I know I am!” she continued. “And I can’t wait to be discriminated against for a new reason!!”(Photo by Gotham/Getty Images)
“I’ve hinted about my sexuality for years while being afraid to spell it out for everybody,” she told Gay Times in May 2021. “I did a lyric video last year, for ‘We Belong.’ It had moving line drawings of people falling in love…It was all a man and a woman making out and it was a weird moment for me.”
“When the song came out, everybody got the idea that the song was a big LGBTQ+ anthem song and I found myself in this position where everyone thought I was queerbaiting,” she continued. “I went on Instagram Live and said ‘Guys, I really needed to explain something to you. Maybe I haven’t said it, but I’m super queer. This is something I want to represent through my music because it’s who I am.'”
“Every day we wake up, we are given another opportunity and chance to be who we want and wish to be,” she wrote in the caption. “I’ve spent the majority of my life growing in front of all of you… you’ve seen the good, the bad, and everything in between. Not only has my life been a journey for myself, I was also living for those on the other side of the cameras.”
“Today is a day I’m so happy to share more of my life with you all – I am proud to let you know that I identify as non-binary and will officially be changing my pronouns to they/them moving forward,” Demi—who has since gone back to using she/her pronouns—continued. “This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work. I’m still learning and coming into myself, and I don’t claim to be an expert or a spokesperson. Sharing this with you now opens another level of vulnerability for me.”
“I realized this is so much bigger than me and my relationship and my personal experience because if it helped anyone feel comfortable or brave to be comfortable with who they fall in love with, then that’s way bigger than me and my fears and what I was scared of,” she told E! News in June 2022. “It’s very humbling to read comments like that and realize the significance of something as simple as falling in love and sharing that.”
“I was about to sign my record deal, and I really wanted to be in charge of how I came out,” he told People in February 2022. “I didn’t want anyone to take that away from me. I wanted to start going out and going to gay clubs and meeting boys, and I wanted to write songs about love that were true and genuine.”
“If someone truly loves you, your happiness should always come before their beliefs,” Chrishell, who began her romance with the Australian singer in 2022, told E! News. “Never conform to others ideas they have for your life. It’s yours and you only get one.”
“My identity will already be something that can be of controversy, depending on who the audience is,” Chris told E! News in October 2022. “So one of my passive-active missions in having this platform is to try to break that down and bring normalcy to this identity.”
The Bravo star, who came out while in college, shared some valuable advice for having those big coming out conversations.
“My advice would be, find one friend that you can tell,” he previously told E! News. “All it takes is one friend that you know will be supportive. And that friend can be your island and just kind of branch out from there. It’s always worse in your head than it’s going to be.” For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
