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Sarah Gilbert: from Roseanne to Talk Show Creator

posted by Women & Hollywood
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 12:00pm CDT

Now that Comic-Con has ended the excitement for us TV addicts is now focused on the upcoming fall TV season. This week began the annual dog and pony show TCA (which I’d love to see in person one day) with all the networks rolling out all the new shows that we will be spending way too much of our time watching come September.

One new daytime show on CBS is called The Talk and it is created by none other than Darlene Connor aka Sara Gilbert. Yes, folks, Darlene is all grown up, has two kids and shocker (or not) she’s a lesbian.

When the news of the show — which features six moms sitting around shooting the shit — hit last week with a standard press release there was some hulabaloo on the interwebs about how all the hosts (Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini, Holly Robinson Peete and Marissa Jaret Winokur) partners aka husbands were mentioned in the press release and that the same info was missing from Sara Gilbert’s bio. The shock! The indignation! Are they hiding her sexual orientation?

Gilbert herself set the record straight. She said she didn’t want the first public mention of her partner producer Allison Adler to be in a press release so she asked CBS not to include it.

Now let’s be real, Gilbert’s sexuality is not a big deal. She’s also not the type of Hollywood star that spends her time in the limelight. She’s private and be honest have you rarely have seen her other than when she was acting? No.

But for her this new show — which again, she created and is executive producing and co-hosting — things are a bit different. She’s not reading from a script, she’s talking about her life, and since we know that Sharon Osbourne will no doubt be talking about Ozzy non-stop, you would think that Gilbert would on occasion mention that the person she lives with is a woman.

Here’s what she said at the press conference for The Talk:

This is a whole new world for me… I’m not an expert on this, or I don’t analyze these things. I’m just sort of living my life. I plan to put my heart and soul into this show, and I plan to continue acting, and I don’t think it will be a problem…Being out, that is.

I don’t ever really think of things as out or in…I just think I am who I am, and when topics come up that are appropriate, I’ll talk about them and share when it seems right.

I’m sure Roseanne is proud.

Sara Gilbert On Her Now-Official Status as a Lesbian: This Is a Whole New World for Me (EW)

TCA Press Tour: Sara Gilbert, Julie Chen and Sharon Osbourne target moms with ‘The Talk’ (LA Times)