Andrew Gillum Tells Tamryn Hall: 'I Do Identify As Bisexual'

TALLAHASSEE, FL — Former Florida Democrat gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum told TV host Tamryn Hall he considers himself to be bisexual and at one time questioned whether he wanted to live after his fall from politics this spring when Miami Beach first responders found him in a luxury hotel room where police recovered three small plastic bags of suspected methamphetamine.

"I don't identify as gay, but I do identify as bisexual," Gillum said during the television interview. "That is something that I never have shared publicly before."

The former Tallahassee mayor, who lost a close governor's race to Republican Ron DeSantis in 2018 appeared in the season two premiere of "Tamryn Hall" Monday with wife R. Jai. Gillum would have become the state's first Black governor had he won the race.

Gillum, who voluntarily entered rehab following the Miami Beach incident, said he no longer has anything left to conceal.

"The truth is that Tamryn everybody believes the absolute worst about that day," he said. "I literally got broken down to my most bare place, to the place where I wasn't even sure that I wanted to live, not because of what I had done, but because of everything that was being said about me."

Miami Beach police said Gillum was found "under the influence of an unknown substance" as first responders recovered suspected methamphetamine.

"Mr. Gillum was unable to communicate with officers due to his inebriated state," a Miami Beach police incident report said at the time.

Gillum hinted he could one day return to politics if he puts his mind to it, but he acknowledged that a comeback would be difficult.

"There is not a thing that has happened in my life, scandalous or not, to cause me to believe that if I have service to give in elected office, as a means in order to render that, that I couldn't do that," he said. "But Donald Trump is president. You've got elected officials who are on tape, not inebriated and passed out and taken advantage of, but folks who are literally, voluntarily terrorizing people's lives, and it's captured on video, and they wear it as a symbol of pride."

The National Black Justice Coalition released a statement after the interview aired supporting Gillum's decision to publicly discuss his sexuality.

"He’s creating space for us to talk about a segment of our community that experiences erasure, stigma, and discrimination from both within and outside the LGBTQIA+ community," Executive Director David Johns said in Monday's statement. "It is my hope that the conversation does not end with today’s interview, but is continued without stigma, and with a whole lot of grace. These conversations and the healing they may provide for so many members of our community are required for all Black people to be free — healthy, happy, and whole."

Gillum's wife acknowledged she knew about her husband's bisexuality but isn't sure she would have married him had she known she would one day face public criticism.

"I've told him before that saying 'yes' was only about me and you. It wasn't about me, you and the world," she confided. "I think perhaps being as young as we were — I wasn't even 30 yet — I may have said 'no' because at that age, I knew I wouldn't have had the maturity to say 'while I am privately OK with this, I don't know that I have the strength to continually defend our relationship or my marriage to anyone who doesn't understand.'"