George Takei had to boldly go public after Schwarzenegger gay wedding veto

George Takei hid his sexuality for many years but is now an outspoken activist for gay rights.

It’s all Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fault that George Takei decided to finally come out at the age of 68.

The actor and activist, famous for playing Lieutenant Sulu in the original Star Trek series and the subsequent Star Trek films, had been concealing his sexuality from the public for most of his life.

But in 2005, when Schwarzenegger, then Governor of California, vetoed a bill legalising gay marriage in the state, George was so angry he decided to speak out. Some 20 years later you can still hear that anger in his voice when the former governor’s name comes up.

When the star of The Terminator and Predator ran to be governor he had courted the LGBTQ vote, George recalls. “He would say: ‘I’m from Hollywood, I’ve worked with the gays and lesbians.’

“That impressed some of my gay friends and a few of them did vote for him and he got elected governor of California.”

A piper played as George wed long-term partner Brad in 2008.

So when the governor then vetoed the bill legalising same-sex marriage, George felt he had to speak up. “So at 68 years old I came out and I blasted his veto and his hypocrisy.”

That said, George was also aware of his own hypocrisy. He had spent decades closeted and pretending that he wasn’t attracted to men for fear of losing his career. “I wanted to free myself of that,” he says.

And so he has spent the last two decades being honest about himself. He has now written a book telling his story. It Rhymes With Takei is a new graphic memoir in which the actor – working with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker – explains how he hid part of himself away for so long.

Now 88, George divides his time between Los Angeles and New York. This afternoon he is in the latter, speaking to me on a Zoom call and very excited to be talking to someone from Scotland. It’s one of his favourite countries, he says. “I have more than a few friends there and I’m a regular visitor to Edinburgh at festival time.”

He first came to Scotland’s capital in 1964 – “I fell in love with it immediately” – and he has returned many times since. In 1992 he even served as an honorary chieftain at the Bearsden and Milngavie Highland Games.

“I wore my kilt authentically,” he points out. “One of the caber throwers didn’t believe that and after the games we all went into the pub and he came up to the bar where I was and said: ‘You’re wearing the kilt well, but are you wearing it authentically?’ And I said: ‘Yes I am and I’m ready to prove it.’ He said: ‘I’ll see for myself.’”

The point was indeed proved.

At 88, George looks to have changed little from the days when he was steering the USS Enterprise to boldly go where no man has gone before. He remains slim and youthful-looking. His cheekbones could still cut paper. A result, he says, of being a runner all his life (although a running injury has curtailed the habit of late).

He remains full of energy and vigour and hopeful despite the state of the world. And yet his own story is proof of how uncertain life can sometimes be. When he was a boy, George and his family were interned after the bombing of Pearl Harbour because of their Japanese ancestry.

“We’re Americans who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbour. But during wartime there is war hysteria which gets mixed up with race prejudice and simply because we looked like this, the country was swept up in hating Japanese-Americans.”

He wrote about the experience in his first graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemies. “So, I know about hysteria,” he points out. “And it’s the same thing with the prejudice against LGBTQ people.” He hopes by telling his story he can help “normalise gay people”.

One advantage of telling the story in comic book form, he says, is it means it can reach a wider range of people to help “create a climate of understanding” and emphasise the “diversity of America”.

That, he adds, was at the very heart of Star Trek. The acronym IDIC – infinite diversity in infinite combination – was part of the show’s core beliefs, he points out.

“Working together makes us stronger and better problem-solvers,” George says. “And that society is much more engaging, much more interesting.”

There speaks a man who in the 1960s joined the civil rights movement – he once met Martin Luther King – and protested against the Vietnam War. But he was always very aware that while he spoke out about such issues he kept his own sexuality hidden for fear that it might end his career.

“I knew that I could never be hired as an actor if it was known I was gay,” George explains. “If I want to be an actor I have to keep the way I feel about other men hidden. I became closeted. I thought: ‘Well, I’m an actor. I’m good at acting so I’ll act like everybody else.’ And as a teenager I had female friends who I dated, but not in the same way my straight male friends dated.”

That deception continued for much of his life. Many of his fellow actors in Star Trek knew the truth, however, and were supportive.

On one particular evening, he reveals in the book, he even spent the night in the same bed as Nichelle Nichols – who played Lieutenant Uhura in the series – when they were stranded at a hotel. “I know you’re not going to do anything,” she told him. “So many people’s dream,” he says of that night, laughing. “I fulfilled that dream. But it was a very chaste fulfilment of that dream.”

The cast of Star Trek shared much of the idealism of its creator, Gene Roddenberry, Takei argues. “I got the benefit in a strange way from that kind of acceptance and the embracing of diversity.”

The only cast member George seems not to have got on with is William Shatner – aka Captain Kirk. The two have been taking potshots at each other in public for years. The day before we speak, George went on the social media platform Bluesky to comment on the news that President Trump and Elon Musk had fallen out. “Next to Trump and Musk, Shatner and I look like adoring newlyweds,” he wrote.

George is not a fan of Trump. This natural outspokenness makes his decision to conceal something so personal as his sexuality for so long so surprising. But it also shows how afraid he was of its impact.

By the time he did come out he had been in a relationship with his partner Brad for years. They had met in the 1980s. But Brad, George says, backed his decision not to be open. “Brad is a much more careful person. He knew what could happen if I came out. My career would end.”

However, prompted by Schwarzenegger’s veto, at 68 George was finally ready to face the consequences. “I was willing to give up my career,” he says. “I had been a hypocrite by being closeted.”

But when George did come out, “the very opposite of what we feared happened,” he admits. “NBC, CBS, they all started calling me in for interviews as well as guest shots on shows like The Big Bang Theory and Will And Grace.”

With Nichelle Nichols on the set of the sci-fi series in 1966.

Suddenly George was more in demand than he had been in years. And he and Brad finally married in 2008. Their wedding even included a bagpipe procession. Still, there were consequences to his honesty.

When he talked to his own brother and his wife about his sexuality they just couldn’t accept it and cut him off. But his brother’s children did not. They remain in his life and his nephew even lives in the same building in New York.

“So his children – my grand niece and nephew – are still in my life. My brother’s grandchildren are with me.”

Spend time in Takei’s company and what comes across is his positivity. In an age when Trump is in the White House that can’t be easy to maintain, I suggest. “I’m an optimist because pessimists never get anything done,” he says. “It’s optimists that get things done. We will overcome this, as we always have. And we will get to the stars.”

It Rhymes With Takei, by George Takei, Harmony Becker, Steven Scott and Justin Eisinger, is published by Top Shelf Productions