When A Sistah Misses The Signs: Famous Women Who Married Down-Low Men And Didn’t Know It (And A Few Who Did)

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Terry McMillan

You knew it was coming.  Jonathan Plummer was the inspiration behind her book and the movie, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and when McMillan was showing him off to the world, she looked genuinely enamored with the guy.  But after getting married in ’98, they were getting divorced in 2005, after Plummer admitted to McMillan that he was gay all the way. And boy don’t we know that things got ugly. They both came on to Oprah’s show in 2010 to talk about how things fell apart, and McMillan wasn’t hiding her disgust for the man. It made for great television, but it was definitely sad.  After the fact, she tried to sue him for allegedly trying to ruin her reputation in the public eye, including making her seem like a homophobe:

“When I was ready to run him over, it wasn’t because he was gay. I never hated his guts because he was gay. … And that was one reason why I sued, because I hated the idea of being known as a homophobe. Jonathan deep down inside knew I wasn’t homophobic. I have too many gay and lesbian friends. Too many.”

But as she told Oprah, moving forward, she’s no longer angry about it, has found peace with Plummer (and she dropped that suit) and says she can trust men again. “As my mother would say, one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole tree.”