Billionaire Barry Diller Comes Out After 50-Year Relationship With Wife

Billionaire media mogul Barry Diller has spoken publicly about his sexuality for the first time ahead of the release of his memoir Who Knew?

In an essay in New York Magazine, the Fox co-founder discussed the open secret that is his relationships with men, and his 50-year relationship with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg.

“While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman,” Diller wrote.

“I have never questioned my sexuality’s basic authority over my life (I was only afraid of the reaction of others). And when my romance with Diane began, I never questioned that its biological imperative was as strong in its heterosexuality as its opposite had been. When it happened, my initial response was ‘Who knew?’”

At the time of their first meeting, Diller was the CEO of Paramount, and von Fürstenberg was married to her first husband and father of her children, Prince Egon von Fürstenberg.

Many months later, they met again at a dinner party and were drawn to each other, spending the evening deep in conversation. She asked to see him again, to which Diller agreed, and the pair found themselves at the end of the following night “wound around each other, making out like teenagers, something I hadn’t done with a female since I was 16 years old.”

The pair were in a public relationship from 1974 to 1981, until they drifted back to each other after ten years. In 2001, they finally married at a no-fuss ceremony at City Hall.

“In some cosmic way, we were destined for each other”

Diller wrote that although he knew of the speculation around his sexuality, and knew himself of his attraction to men, he never doubted the love he had for his wife.

“I’ve lived for decades reading about Diane and me: about us being best friends rather than lovers,” Diller wrote. “We weren’t just friends. We aren’t just friends. Plain and simple, it was an explosion of passion that kept up for years.”

“And, yes, I also liked guys, but that was not a conflict with my love for Diane. I can’t explain it to myself or to the world. It simply happened to both of us without motive or manipulation. In some cosmic way we were destined for each other.”

In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, von Fürstenberg discussed her husband’s disclosure in public for the first time.

“All I can tell you is Barry and I have had an incredible life, love for 50 years,” she said. “We have been lovers, friends, married, everything. And, you know, for me, the secret to honor life, and to honor love, is never to lie.”

She added that while the piece in New York Magazine may have been him opening “to the world,” to her, “he opened 50 years ago.”