Louis Virtel is an actor and comedian who appeared on Jeopardy earlier this week and made headlines thanks to his brilliant and hilarious snap after he absolutely nailed the Daily Double question on the plays of Arthur Miller.
As a huge fan of the show, Virtel had achieved a bit of a dream by appearing on it, but speaking afterwards, he said he had one big regret about his time on air, and it wasn't his snap.
In a piece he wrote for HitFix.com, he explained that "I hate, hate, hate that I didn't just say "I'm gay" on air".
Virtel goes on to say "I can think of only one contestant who explicitly mentioned his gayness on air, and that was season 28 premiere contestant Glenn Edwards. He discussed singing with the New York City Gay Men's Chorus during his chat with Alex. I will never forget Glenn Edwards. "Jeopardy!" is a show where in a given week you hear a handful of contestant anecdotes about how some guy met his wife, or how some woman met her husband. You hear clues about straight romance in literature and celebrity straight couples. For whatever reason, you never hear gay contestants open up about their lives and you don't hear much about the lives of gay celebrities and luminaries either...As a kid growing up in the suburbs who venerated everything about "Jeopardy!", I would've loved seeing an expressive gay contestant own his homosexuality as well as the buzzer".
He has been receiving a lot of homophobic abuse online since his appearance on the show, and while he says he can deal with it, "I only wish I could've told everyone how proud I was".
Via i100
