Luke Evans Doesn't Think Being Gay Hurts His Career

Luke Evans recently shared in an interview with The Jackal that he doesn't feel being gay has hurt his career at all.

"I don't think I'd be in this business if I felt that I was not being employed because of who I am in my personal life," he said.

If you didn't realize the Beauty and the Beast and The Girl on the Train star was gay, you wouldn't be alone. The star seems to have been in and out of the closet at several points in his career. In a 2002 interview with The Advocate, he kicked off his acting career with complete transparency:

"Well, it was something I'd spoken to a lot of people about, including my boyfriend at the time--we've broken up now--but at the time when I just got Taboo, I knew that even though my part was a straight character everybody knew me as a gay man, and in my life in London I never tried to hide... I knew I was going to have to do interviews with gay magazines; I knew this was going to happen. So I thought, Well, I'm going to have to be open. It's who I am. And if people don't like it, then I don't want their jobs."

In 2011, his Wikipedia page was edited to amend "Luke Evans is openly gay" to "Evans lives a private life and rarely speaks about his personal life." At the time he was also romantically linked to a woman named Holly Goodchild. When asked about the relationship, his publicist acknowledged the original 2002 interview but said she does not comment on the personal lives of her clients.

Most recently, he's been linked to Spanish model/actor Jon Kortajarena (A Single Man, Quantico).

"I try to keep my personal life and my private life separate," he told The Jackal. "Not for any reason other than there's a clue in the title--it's private. As an actor you have to keep some sort of enigma and mystery. There's a dignity to keeping private. I'm trying to keep a bit of dignity to my private life and to protect the people in my life... It's the choice I've made."