Crystal Clears Up His Comments About Gay TV Sex

Billy Crystal was recently criticized for comments he made in an interview about gay sex on television. The comedian was quoted as saying, “Sometimes I think, ‘Ah that’s too much for me. Sometimes, it’s just pushing it a little too far for my taste.” However, as soon as the homophobic accusations started being made, The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Crystal for comment on the situation. According to The Comedians star, Billy Crystal's comments were taken out of context, "What I meant was that whenever sex or graphic nudity of any kind (gay or straight) is gratuitous to the plot or story it becomes a little too much for my taste[.]" After re-reading the full transcript of his remarks, it does seem like what he was saying was more vague than it was homophobic. The full sentence was in fact,

And I’ve seen some stuff recently on TV in different kinds of shows where the language or the explicit sex is really you know, sometimes I get it, and sometimes I have I just feel like, “Ah, that’s too much for me.”

Crystal isn't calling out shows with gay love stories or sex scenes, however since the leading questions were about his portrayal of a gay character in Soap, it's easy to see how his comments could be come across as insensitive. He then mentioned, "I’m not going to get into which ones they are," in reference to what shows he finds to be, "too much," when it comes to their sex scenes, which was a smart PR move — no matter what he named, he would have likely been criticized since sexual politics are a hot-button (albeit very important) topic.

In all honesty, there are plenty of shows on television whose sex scenes I find gratuitious and not my taste either. You can keep all of your rape scenes, thank you very much Game of Thrones, I'm good.

Crystal continues in the interview to remark on his experience in playing a gay character in the 1970s,

I did it in front of a live audience, and there were times where I would say to Bob, “I love you,” and the audience would laugh nervously, because, you know, it’s a long time ago, that I’d feel this anger. I wanted to stop the tape and go, “What is your problem?” Because it made you sort of very self conscious about what we were trying to do then. And now it’s just I see it and I just hope people don’t abuse it and shove it in our face well, that sounds terrible...to the point of it just feels like an everyday kind of thing.

Well, I guess that settles that. If anything, the whole situation shows just how much the subject of LGBT representation in the media matters.