Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels is an openly gay Black American director and producer known for Monster's Ball (2001, which he produced), Precious (2009, Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director), The Butler (2013), and Empire (2015, which he co-created). Daniels has been open about his sexuality throughout most of his Hollywood career rather than through any single dramatic coming-out moment, and has more recently described his sexuality as fluid; he has spoken extensively about being beaten as a child for being gay, about the intersection of his Blackness and his queerness, and about the ways both have shaped his work and his experience in Hollywood. Empire featured Jussie Smollett as a gay Black musician and was one of the most-watched network dramas of the mid-2010s.