19 Gay Men Who Were Once Married to Women

6. Oscar Wilde

The famous author best remembered for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and works like Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest was married to Constance Lloyd in May 1884. Canadian journalist Robert Ross had read Wilde’s poems and became ‘wildly’ attracted to the married novelist. By author Richard Ellmann’s account, “Ross was a precocious seventeen-year-old, so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde.” According to American memoirist Daniel Mendelsohn, Wilde, was “initiated into homosexual sex” by Ross, while his “marriage had begun to unravel after his wife’s second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled.” Another instance proved Wilde’s questionable sexuality. He was arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry. The author had been engaged in an affair with the marquess’s son since 1891, but when the outraged marquess denounced him as a homosexual, Wilde sued. Wilde lost his case due to strong evidence proving his homosexuality and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.