British actor Rupert Everett says he is unimpressed with the way gay pride events have developed into party events, attracting what he calls "a generation of mindless drug addicts."

The 48-year-old Golden Globe nominee, who himself was quite a partyboy and worked as a male prostitute when he was young, said this to SX News:

"I think all these pride marches have lost their center slightly. If you encountered them in the beginning of the 1980s when the gay community was really in crisis with its back against the wall, they were very highly charged events about survival and trying to define ourselves and keep our heads up.

"Now, because of all the fighting that those people did, there is a generation of mindless drug addicts – party-grazing cows who move from one side of the planet to the other, getting high and fucking each other. I'm not saying whether that's good or bad, but it's not political anymore.

"Maybe the thing we have to protest most is our behavior within ourselves – maybe it's interior not exterior. It's up to us to see where our image to the outside world now is – because that is what's potentially dangerous."

Rupert Everett hosted Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade last year.

Last update: 02-20-2008 14:30