Boy Culture Links: Dylan O'Brien on Playing Gay, Don Lemon Receives Hero's Welcome at HRC Dinner, Out Olympians, Dem Blowout in Louisiana + MORE
FEBRUARY 8, 2026
DEADLINE: Dylan O’Brien, who gave one of the best performances of 2025 as twins in Twinless, opened up about the controversy surrounding straight actors playing gay roles by praising writer-director James Sweeney for “giving him permission” to do just that:
“Permission goes a long way. James is a gay man, and coming from a place I could trust. We had a similar take on straight actors playing gay parts, especially in recent years: you started seeing straight actors playing a queer role completely straight. It started to feel inauthentic. It was nice to have his insight, support, and calibration. He’d be like, ‘Go crazy on this one. We can dial it back if it doesn’t feel real.'”
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INSTAGRAM: RIP Camilla Carr, 83. She acted in a wide variety of projects, including low-budget horror, but it was as high-budget fussbudget Imogene on the “Killing All the Right People” episode of Designing Women in 1987 where she had her best moments on screen. Her character callously opined that gays were getting what they deserved with AIDS, a gut-wrenching and all too common sentiment at the time the episode dropped. Trail-blazing TV courtesy of creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, whose mom died of AIDS.
HRC: Don Lemon received an uproarious welcome at the Human Rights Campaign’s 2026 New York Dinner, where he extolled the virtues of the First Amendment in the wake of his arrest, saying:
“Truth matters, dignity is not optional, freedom is not guaranteed … The First Amendment is the breath in the lungs of democracy, it is the bedrock of our democracy, and when that breath is threatened — all of us an can feel it before you can even explain it. You know that saying, ‘I can’t breathe’? Our society cannot breathe without the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech.”
GLAAD: This Super Bowl could not be more LGBTQ+-friendly.
OUTSPORTS: All seven out gay & bi Olympian figure skaters at the Milan Winter Olympics.
EXTRATV: A gut-wrenching video from Savannah Guthrie and her family as they appear to be receiving messages directly from their mom’s kidnappers now.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: How it feels when your first big soundtrack gig is scoring Heated Rivalry.
NEW YORK TIMES: Man alive, was Hillary Clinton ever right about Tulsi Gabbard.
ADVOCATE: “The Lush Life of Billy Strayhorn, the Gay Black Man Who Was Duke Ellington’s ‘right arm.’”
NBC NEWS: Will Lewis is stepping down as the publisher of Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post after firing a third of its staff. His goodbye message really smacks of, “I done good here.”:
“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day.”
THE DOWNBALLOT: Democrats have defeated Republican Brad Daigle in Louisiana, the latest special election giving us a hint at 2026’s coming blue tsunami. Congrats to Chastity Martinez! (And by the by, it was not close.)
