HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Best known as the beloved mom Elyse Keaton on the hit ’80s sitcom Family Ties, Meredith Baxter is opening up about her new life as a lesbian.
“I am a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition,” the 62-year-old actress revealed on Wednesday’s Today Show. “Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is — not at all. This has only been for the past seven years.”
Baxter said it was never her intention to open up about her private life. However, a recent trip with her girlfriend on a Caribbean cruise sponsored by a lesbian travel company opened up the floodgates in the tabloids.
“I don’t want to be worried all the time,” Baxter told Matt Lauer. “I knew I was pushing it.”
“I did not want some tabloid to take the story and make it up — I wanted it to be in my own words,” she added.
After three failed marriages to men (most famously to actor David Birney), Baxter said she dated a woman for the first time seven years ago.
“I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening,” she said. “I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.”
Baxter has been dating her current girlfriend, building contractor Nancy Locke, for the past four years after being introduced through mutual friends. Baxter said they “live very out lives in Los Angeles,” but she admitted that opening up to her five children about her sexuality was initially very difficult.
“I said, ‘I think I’m gay,’ and my oldest boy said, ‘I knew,’ ” she shared, laughing. “The support from my family and anyone close to me has been so immediate and unqualified. I’ve really been blessed.”
