Featured Image Credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, LGBTQ, US News, Fashion, Sex and Relationships
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Celebrity, LGBTQ, US News, Fashion, Sex and Relationships
It's been seven months since her husband of 24 years proudly came out as gay, but only this week has Diane von Furstenberg spoken out.
Barry Diller, billionaire businessman, announced the truth of his sexuality in March of this year, in his debut memoir Who Knew?
In the years prior, the 83-year-old was subjected to mass speculation in this arena, with onlookers questioning whether his famously private personal life actually served as something to hide. Often, it was the Hollywood gossip columns that explicitly questioned Diller's sexuality, with unmarried, wealthy, and powerful older males of the 70s and 80s - who didn’t publicly date women - routinely rumoured to be gay.
In 2001, however, the Fox Broadcasting Company co-founder unexpectedly wed fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg - mother of both Prince Alexander and Princess Tatiana von Furstenberg.
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Furstenberg had previously been married to Prince Egon von Fürstenberg for three years, with their relationship coming to an end in 1972. In the years that followed, the Prince came out as bisexual.
Prior to tying the knot, she and Diller had been close for several decades.
That said, however, during public appearances following their nuptials, the husband and wife duo demonstrated much more of a companionship, than a romantic relationship.
And earlier this year, in his memoir, Diller opened up about his previous same-sex romances. In the same breathe, however, he insisted he felt urges towards his wife in equal measure to that of male lovers.
Of his marriage, he added: "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."
Elsewhere, Diller penned: "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?'"
Despite her husband's open and honest admissions, Furstenberg has this week insisted that nothing between she and Diller had changed.
"What’s the difference?" she bluntly asked in conversation with Variety for their 16 October issue. "I don’t understand. But it doesn’t change anything. I’m sorry - it’s a stupid question."
Looking back on her first marriage, she went on to add: "I married two gay men, OK? I don’t know why, but to me, they’re not gay, so it doesn’t make any difference."
Fursternberg was also asked whether she'd been 'supporting' her husband following his courageous claim, the 78-year-old insisted she doesn't 'see it that way', insisting: "For me, it’s not that way. I don’t know. Yes, I encouraged him to do that book."
She continued of her husband's work: "For me, the book is not about that. It’s about his life. And of course, with me, he opened immediately.
"For 50 years, I was the only person he opened to. Then he wrote the book."
Finally, Furstenberg went on to agree with her husband's claim, that they'd been made for each other.
"He turned out to be my soulmate. I didn’t think of it at first," she admitted. "I was interested in being a good friend; I never thought it would be anything else. Then it turned to passion. He was very insistent."