Though known as a gay icon, Summer’s born-again-Christian status began alienating the diva from her gay fans, and in the mid-1980s, a false report that she’d called AIDS the wrath of God on gay people began circulating widely, an allegation she has flatly denied since. According to Jet Magazine, in 1989, she wrote to the New York chapter of ACT UP calling the entire thing a terrible misunderstanding.
” Donna Summer dies, The Washington Blade.
Donna Summer, whose post-’70s career was compromised by antigay remarks she allegedly made at a 1983 concert, disputed ever making the comments, blaming them on an angry journalist, and lamented the impact of AIDS on her close friends, during a 1989 interview with The Advocate.
” Donna Summer Denied Making Antigay Remarks That Hurt Her Career, The Advocate.
We cannot properly memorialize Donna Summer without mentioning Paul Jabara, the late gay songwriter and performer who won the Academy Award for Best Original Song after his Last Dance was performed by Summer in the pitiful disco movie, Thank God It’s Friday. (…)
Jabara also wrote No More Tears for Summer and Barbara Streisand, but his greatest fame, perhaps, is for co-writing It’s Raining Men with Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer. As so many of our most creative did, Paul Jabara succumbed to AIDS in the early 90s.
” Donna Summer & Paul Jabara, Joe. My. God.
Personally, I suppose I too believe she did make some sort of negative remarks all those years ago, which she surely regretted. But I never stopped dancing to her music. I still have my LP of On the Radio, the double album of her greatest hits. I think I can let it go. So Donna, rest in peace.
” Requiem for the Queen of Disco, The POZ Staff.
I’ll never have that recipe again.