John Barrowman receiving the Human Rights Campaign award

[dieastra]

Some friends here know that I recently struggled a bit with my love for John Barrowman, you know how it is, little things start to grate, and you start to wonder about some of his decisions and general over the top behavior (I'm still not over that weird stripey suit with short pants he wore when presenting an award show). But then he goes and does something awesome and I am back.

Today he got the Human Rights Campaign award for being out and proud and helping the community in every way possible. I hadn't known that he actually helped shaping UK laws (I only knew that they changed the music charts counting system when he started to sell his CDs at QVC). That's pretty big. Here is the video of his acceptance speech and it is a really good one. This is why we love him:

https://www.facebook.com/GayStarNews/videos/1184590711617244/

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Comments

[quarryquest.livejournal.com]

I never knew this about John and am impressed to see him doing the standing up and being counted. I remember him starting out in the West End when I knew people there and AIDS was decimating everything. I'm glad John was sensible enough not to catch anything and survive all that. We lost a lot of people who were gay and out but we didn't like or dislike them any more because of who they were. This was despite some of the things people said.

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

I think as much as he likes to talk about things, he also does a lot in quiet we don't know. A while ago in an interview also came out that instead of giving Christmas presents to each other, he and Scott went to a family in need and gave them some money so they could buy Christmas presents for the kids. If the interviewer hadn't asked about it, we would have never known.

Wow, didn't know you knew him back then already. Must be nice to have followed his career since.

A while ago I watched "The normal Heart" with Matt Bomer, and there is a very emotional speech in there about all the lost art which we never came to know because of all the dead dancers, singers, song writers, actors, authors. Truly a lost generation. I don't remember who it was that said he was going to a funeral every week. What a sad time to live through.

There was a time when John thought he had caught it as well, and was very ill. He flew home to America to go to the doctor to get checked out, and that was also when he came out to his family which he hadn't properly done before, explaining why he was there. They were like "We already knew". Must have been a scary time though.