10 legendary gay icons and how they earned their titles

Diana Ross

The gays love a diva, and that’s why stars like Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Mariah Carey are so revered in the community. But there’s one diva who out-divas them all: Miss Diana Ross.

Diana Ross already had a huge following from her time spent with The Supremes. The gay community, above all else, loves glitz and glamour, and Ross was known for her glamorous looks and big hair, to go with her even bigger personality. The gay community has always gravitated towards strong, talented women, so it wasn’t a surprise that she managed to gain a huge gay following.

The moment Diana Ross became a certified gay icon was when she unleashed the single “I’m Coming Out” into the world. While it wasn’t specifically about coming out of the closet, Nile Rodgers, who wrote the song for her back in the 1970s, explained the origins of the lyrics.

He was hanging out in an underground gay club in New York when he noticed not one, not two, but three drag queens dressed up as Diana Ross. That’s when he started thinking about the idea of Diana Ross coming out of the closet, if she was a gay man, and realized how it compared to her “coming out” after leaving Motown.

Thanks to Rodgers’ inspired idea, Diana Ross was hailed as a gay icon. Whatever the lyrics were intended to mean, the LGBTQ community recognized their significance and related to them, and just like that, a gay anthem was born. To this day, Ross is still a drag favorite in clubs around the world.