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New MSNBC Host Ronan Farrow Is Allegedly Gay. Also Allegedly Frank Sinatra's Son

"[Farrow] was appearing at political fetes with Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter."

Ronan Farrow has been in the news quite a bit: A newly minted talking head on MSNBC, the 25-year-old Farrow is the son of Mia Farrow and—well, that's kind of why he's been in the news.

Ostensibly Ronan is Woody Allen's son, since Farrow and Allen were together back in 1988—but he could actually be the son of Frank Sinatra, Mia's husband from 1966 to 1968. Especially with those twinkling blue eyes and decided lack of Semitic features.

Oh, and the fact that in a lengthy Vanity Fair feature, Mia admitted he might "possibly" be Frank's offspring.

Vice magazine had something new to add to the discussion, though: The news that Ronan Farrow—born Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow—is gay. Allegedly.

Farrow is a cherubic 25-year-old boy-genius who graduated from Yale Law School at the age of 21, won a Rhodes scholarship, served as a diplomat for the Obama administration, signed a major book deal with Penguin, and is now hosting a weekday show for MSNBC.

He’s also gay, according to friends of mine who have slept with him, but you wouldn’t know that from reading either Vanity Fair or the New York Times. Why the reticence? Neither publication seems very interested in protecting Farrow’s privacy—the articles reveal bracingly personal details about Farrow and his family, including lurid speculations about paternity and painful references to the drawn-out custody disputes with Allen. Why a veil of secrecy for this particular detail? Is “outing” even a thing that publications worry about anymore?

It's not as obvious to me that Farrow's sexuality needed to be mentioned in the Times profile, though again there's a dog-whistle issue: "When he wasn’t busy navigating world events, [Farrow] was adding some panache to the Washington social scene, often appearing at political fetes with Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter”; and "he is guarded about his private life, suggesting a persona more carefully calibrated than he lets on." OK, maybe that's a little louder than a dog-whistle.

It’s possible that the piece’s author, Michael Schulman, who often writes about gay celebrities, couldn't get anyone to verify Farrow's sexuality on the record. Farrow himself didn’t cooperate with the article, so the omission was not part of some brokered deal to get access. According to Google, Lovett is Farrow's long-time boyfriend, though for all I know the situation is more complicated and Farrow and Lovett are in a four-way relationship with an older woman and her female cat.

Ooh, that would be even more interesting.

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