Is omar from the wire gay in real life
Michael K. Williams Pushed for More Homosexual Intimacy on ‘The Wire’: ‘You Perceive Gay People F*ck, Right?’
Michael K. Williams reflected on his enduring legacy as Omar Little in HBO’s “The Wire” prior to his death in a newly published memoir.
Five-time Emmy nominee Williams died of a drug overdose in September 2021 at age 54. The “Lovecraft Country” and “Boardwalk Empire” player portrayed gay drug dealer Omar in “The Wire” from 2002 to 2008.
“As for Omar’s homosexuality, it was groundbreaking 20 years ago, and I confess that at first I was scared to play a gay character,” Williams penned in an excerpt from his memoir “Scenes From My Life” co-authored with Jon Sternfeld, via Vulture. “I think my initial fear of Omar’s sexuality came from my upbringing, the community that raised me, and the stubborn stereotypes of gay characters. Once I realized that Omar was non-effeminate, that I didn’t have to communicate or walk in a flamboyant way, a lot of that fear drained away. I made Omar my possess. He wasn’t written as a type, and I wouldn’t play him as one.”
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About 15 minutes into the third episode of The Wire, Omar Little is sitting on a stoop with two of his crew members. One of the men, Brandon, is under Omar’s arm, his head leaning on Omar’s chest. The second member, John, looks on uncomfortably. As the scene progresses, Omar and Brandon tenderly play with each other’s fingers, leading to Omar delivering a light forehead embrace and a tender caress of his chin.
By this aim in the series, we’d already watched Omar, trademark shotgun in tow, and his posse deprive a drug house. He’d been established as a snarling Rambo who struck fear in the hearts of everyone who heard his name in Baltimore. And now, the audience learned that he was gay, not as the crux of a plot twist played up for shock, but in a subtle moment of affection.
I was 22 when I saw that scene of Omar kissing Brandon, and it floored me. I had been catching up on the series after it had just ended a few months earlier in March 2008 — using a now-prehistoric version of Netflix to get the DVDs delivered to my door every three days or so. I’d grown up in Mississippi and gone to college in North Carolina and could probably count the number of openly gay men I’d met on my fi
Michael K. Williams Wished ‘The Wire’ Went ‘All In’ on Omar’s Intimacy: ‘You Comprehend Gay People F—, Right?’
Portraying openly lgbtq+ stickup man Omar on HBO’s widely acclaimed “The Wire,” Michael K. Williams offered a fresh portrait of masculinity that was considered revolutionary at the time.
But according to the slow actor’s memoir, “Scenes of My Life,” Williams pushed “The Wire” to proceed further in terms of portraying Omar’s intimacy with his boyfriend Brandon Wright (Michael Kevin Darnall).
“In regards to Omar and his lover Brandon, it seemed favor everyone was dancing around their attachment issue,” Williams wrote (via Vulture). “There was lots of touching hair and rubbing lips and things like that. I felt fond of if we were going to execute this, we should go all in. I think the directors were scared, and I said to one of them, ‘You grasp gay people fuck, right?'”
While Williams, who died of a drug overdose at age 54 last year, did not detect as gay, he mentioned in his memoir that he was called “Faggot Mike” growing up.
The novel, co-written by Jon Sternfeld
Michael K. Williams Was Something Different
In 2004, I was editing a Black community-centered edition of POZ, a magazine about HIV/AIDS. I was planning a story about the shifting voice of Black gay men on television that wouldn’t have been complete without quotes from Michael K. Williams, who was two years into playing Omar on The Wire. The only problem was, he didn’t have a urge person, and HBO hadn’t responded to my lowly request.
A couple of days into my efforts to contact the actor, I happened to see Williams at a party in Manhattan. I was hesitant to bother him, but I had a occupation to do. I asked him for an interview, and we ended up having a long conversation about his work with Crystal Waters, his adoration of dance, and how little he cared about whether people thought he was gay in actual life. At a second when homophobia was rampant, I was struck that he was excited to talk about media images of Black masculinity and sexuality at a party. “I get a lot of love in the ’hood, ironically,” I keep in mind him saying, belying the narrative of disproportionate homophobia in the Black group. “They love the truth of my character. It makes them realize there are all kinds of p