This Pride Month, we celebrate the queer children of famous celebrities like Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Lopez, who’ve embraced their most authentic selves.
With Pride Month in full swing, it’s a good time to acknowledge those who live authentically by embracing their truest selves. This applies to the queer children of famous celebrities or personalities. Their journeys are inspiring, not only because they paved their own unique paths, but also because they did it with the love and support of their parents. Here are four of these remarkable individuals who have shown the importance of self-acceptance:
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Ruby Guest
Among the heartwarming stories of celebrity parents supporting their children is the relationship between actress Jamie Lee Curtis and her transgender daughter, Ruby Guest.
Guest came out as trans in 2020, and since then, Curtis has remained by her daughter’s side, defending her from harmful, transphobic comments. “People have said, ‘You’re so great to accept her love.’ What are you talking about? This is my daughter, this human being has come to me and said, ‘This is who I am,’” Curtis explains in an interview with Joe Scarborough, according to Ellie Muir of Independent.
As for Guest, while she understandably harbored fears about coming out to her parents, when the time finally came, they took the time to understand the change and do what they could to support their child.
“It was intimidating — but I wasn’t worried. They had been so accepting of me my entire life,” Guest states in a People interview with Jason Sheeler. Though Guest and her sister are generally private people, she is now comfortable enough to share her journey to the public, especially if it means encouraging people to accept themselves.
“Is it helpful to come out? Yeah. Like, people will still remember me for who I was, but I haven’t changed that,” she continues. “They finally get to see who I’ve always been, you know, inside, but now I finally get to show it on the outside. […] I’m happy to be more visible if it helps others.”
Samuel Joseph Mozes
Many remember actress Cynthia Nixon for her irreplaceable performance as Miranda Hobbes in the hit series, Sex and the City. Yet not many know that she’s the proud mom of transgender son, Samuel Joseph Mozes (who goes by “Seph”). Nixon herself identifies as bisexual, and had been dating Christine Marinoni since 2002 before marrying her in 2012.
In a 2018 Instagram post, Nixon happily announced that Seph graduated college from The University of Chicago. “I salute him and everyone else marking today’s #TransDayofAction,” she wrote. The eldest of Nixon’s kids, Seph is now 27 years old, and has remained quite private amid his mother’s fame.
Yet it’s clear that the two share a relationship of open communication, as a People feature by Jessica Booth reveals that Seph always encourages Nixon to use her platform and voice to speak up for what’s right; something that she wholeheartedly agrees with and does.
Emme Muñiz
Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez is also the proud mom of a queer child: 16-year-old Emme Muñiz, whom she shares with ex-husband singer-songwriter Marc Anthony. Muñiz uses the gender-neutral pronouns they/them, which Lopez had used to introduce them when they performed a duet together at the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation Blue Diamond Gala on June 16, 2022, reports Whitney Perry of Glamour.
As one would expect, videos of their performance went viral as many appreciated J.Lo’s acceptance of her child, whom she called “her baby.” Emme also shares their mother’s passion for music, having sung a part of Lopez’s 1999 hit “Let’s Get Loud” during the evening. They also possess her talent, evident in a vlog from Jennifer Lopez showing a young Emme belting Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You.”
Anderson Cooper
The late Gloria Vanderbilt is among America’s most prominent figures: both as a leading socialite who descends from the illustrious Vanderbilt family, and also as an actress, writer, fashion designer, and artist. Her son, Anderson Cooper, has achieved his own kind of fame as one of the world’s leading broadcasters, his face seen across CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°,” and on occasion, CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
The son of Vanderbilt and her husband Wyatt—whom she unfortunately lost to open heart surgery in 1978—Cooper shared a close relationship with his mother. Though he only publicly came out as gay in 2012, he had long revealed his identity to his mother decades back, and according to a People feature by Lindsay Kimble, Vanderbilt had accepted her son and even met his boyfriends throughout the years. They also co-wrote a memoir together, The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son Talk About Life, Love, and Loss.
Despite descending from old money, Cooper never depended on his family name. “By the time I was grown […] that money was all gone,” he shares in an interview for The Drew Barrymore Show. “My parents informed me very early on that there’s ‘not some pot of gold waiting for you, no trust [fund]. You’re gonna get your college paid for, and then you’ll make your own way.’ And I thought that was the way it should be.”
Banner photo via Instagram @cynthiaenixon.
