Meredith Baxter, Michael J. Fox’s co-star mom on the ’80s sitcom Family Ties confirmed to Matt Lauer on Wednesday’s “Today” that is discovered later in life she is actually a lesbian.
“I guess I wanted to… say that I’m a lesbian,” Meredith said on the NBC program. “It was a later-in-life recognition of that fact.”
Meredith, 62, has been living life as a lesbian for seven years and confirmed to Matt that she has been involved in a relationship for four years with contractor Nancy Locke. Meredith realized after her first female relationship, with a women other than Locke, that her three marriages to men were doomed from the start.
“I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with and it was that kind of awakening and I never fought it because it was like, ‘Oh! I understand why I had the issues I had early in my life,’” Meredith said. “I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships… Sometimes, I assumed I was a bad picker, which I was indeed, but I also was involved with people who made me think, ‘Oh, they’re the problem,’ because there were problems with the people I chose. It never occurred to me to think, ‘Oh, it’s me.’”
What about her kids, whose ages range from 25-42?
“I said, ‘I think I’m gay.’ My oldest boy said, ‘I knew,’” Meredith laughed. “[They] are just very loving and supportive… The support from my family and anyone close to me has been so immediate and unqualified. I’ve really been blessed.”
Clockwise from left Meredith Birney, Justine Batemen, Michael J Fox, Michael Gross, Tina Yothers
“All my pals in ‘Family Ties’ know,” she said. “They all knew [when we had a reunion on 'Today' two years ago]. We all had dinners together and [TV husband] Michael Gross and his wife and Nancy and I go out, we’ve gone out many times. It’s all OK.”
Meredith said she and Nancy “live very out lives in Los Angeles” and the actress even went on a cruise with 1,200 lesbians not too long ago. But as for why she is speaking out now, Meredith said, in part, it was to share her story in her own words before a tabloid could put their spin on her life.
“I don’t want to be worried all the time and there’s some level of concern just because I am so private and you know, I knew I was pushing it,” Meredith said. “I was taking the step thinking, ‘OK, let’s just let it happen.’ … But the truth is, I did not want some tabloid to take a story and make it up, so I wanted it to be in my own words.”
The actress also said her life before she realized she was gay, was truthful.
“Some people are saying, ‘We’re you living a lie?’ The truth is, not at all. This has only been for the past seven years,” she said.
As for life now, Meredith said things are going really well.
“I’m extraordinarily happy,” she said.
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