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Remember That Time Comedian Don Rickles Came Out As Gay?

No one was safe from the late insult comic, including the LGBT community.

Legendary comedian Don Rickles, who died Thursday at the age of 90, loved a good gay joke.

Back in 2007, while celebrating his 81st birthday at hot spot Mr. Chow, Rickles gave TMZ reporters an exclusive scoop about his sexuality. "Tell Harvey Levin I’m fed up with him," he said from his car. "Because he found out that I’m gay, and nobody else knows that."

Larry Busacca/Getty Images

attends the 10th Annual Exploring The Arts Gala at Radio City Music Hall on September 15, 2016 in New York City.

Rickles was kidding, of course, but he wasn't totally immune to gay rumors in his lifetime. "I didn't get married until I was 38," he once told Men's Journal. "In those days, being gay was unheard of, but it was like, 'Oh, my God, is he that kind of guy?'"

Rickles was also at the center of an edgy gay storyline in his ’70s sitcom C.P.O. Sharkey. In the episode "Sharkey's Big Secret," his clueless character, U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Otto Sharkey, was mistaken for a homosexual by his fellow seamen while being fitted for a toupée by an effeminate salesman.

C.P.O. Sharkey/NBC

For decades, the politically incorrect stand-up comic made a career out of poking fun at his audiences and roasting fellow celebrities, often trading in old stereotypes about race and sexuality. A 2004 New Yorker profile noted that his jabs typically portrayed gay men as "mincing fairies," and that he was no stranger to the word "fag."

Even so, Rickles largely managed to avoid controversy by insulting everybody. As the New York Times recently put it, he was an "equal opportunity offender."

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