Lukas Gage isn’t best pleased with Chris Appleton dating rumours: ‘Nothing can be sacred’
Lukas Gage and Chris Appleton (R). (Getty)
The White Lotus star Lukas Gage had criticised people speculating about his relationship status after posting a series of Instagram photos of himself on holiday with Chris Appleton.
The actor, who also stars in You, went viral after sharing photos of himself and celebrity hairstylist Appleton holidaying together in Mexico earlier in February, with fans assuming they were hard-launching their relationship. On March 8, the pair walked the red carpet at the Vanity Fair and TikTok’s Vanities: A Night for Young Hollywood event in Los Angeles.
However, neither Appleton nor Gage have addressed the speculation until now.
“If they want to think that, they can,” Gage told The New York Times in response to a question about people wondering if it was a relationship announcement.
“I’m a pretty open book about most things in my life, but I have a problem with the culture of everyone needing to know everybody’s business and nothing can be sacred. It’s a weird line that I’m still trying to figure out,” he said.
It’s not the first time Gage has responded to speculation about his relationships and sexuality. In season one of The White Lotus, he plays a hotel employee who is caught being rimmed by the hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett).
However, when one fan tweeted: “If Hollywood can stop hiring non LGBTQIA+ actors like Lukas Gage to play LGBTQIA+ characters, that would be great. He has played four so far. One was enough.” He simply responded: “U don’t know my alphabet.”
When they asked Gage to “enlighten the world”, he replied “no” with a heart emoji.
The hilarious interaction was praised by many who have called out the trend of pressuring actors to come out to justify playing an LGBTQ+ role, including Heartstopper star Kit Connor, who was forced to come out as bisexual.
Gage expanded on his experiences by saying he is pressured to label himself “all the time”.
“An agent that dropped me was like, ‘stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes and pick a lane: gay, bi or straight. It’s too confusing’. I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don’t want to do anything on anyone’s accord but my own.
“Let me do it when I’m ready. And it’s acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want,” he explained.
In the latest season of You, Gage plays pretentious trust fund guy Adam Pratt and viewers are treated to a shocking golden shower scene. It comes after You star Penn Badgley called to scale back on sex scenes among wider discourse to reduce risqué scenes on screen.
However, Gage did not agree, adding: “I feel like it’s a disservice to not see that. But I totally respect Penn and his views,” on excluding key scenes around hidden kinks and queer experiences.
He shared that he finds the discourse “weird”, saying: “I get a lot of backlash in my DMs about it, saying, ‘That’s so disgusting.’ And that pisses me off because I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum.
“But a lot of people can have a hard time separating the actor from the character, and then, suddenly, people are coming up to me at Starbucks asking [if the scene was real]. People forget it’s make-believe.”
You season four part one and two are now streaming on Netflix.
