Neil Patrick Harris says his secret love of the WWE should have been a clue he was gay

This story originally appeared on Them.

Imagine this. Huge, beefy men are tumbling over each other, a mess of biceps, calves, and thighs, slick with sweat, bodies glistening, hair wet and plastered to their faces and necks. If you thought I was describing a heated gay sex scene, you’d be wrong. I’m actually referring to the ultimate queer-coded sport, WWE wrestling, which actor Neil Patrick Harris claims is a total tell for being gay.

While appearing as a guest on the Sam Roberts’ Show for SiriusXM on September 15, the How I Met Your Mother actor chatted with the host about all manner of topics including his upcoming film Sunny Dancer, but what piqued my gay interest most was when he reminisced about liking WWE as a child and what that implied about his sexuality growing up.

In a clip of the interview shared to Sam Roberts’ X account on September 21, the star sits in a studio with Roberts as he asks Harris whether he’s always been into WWE, saying, “Who doesn’t love WWE?” Harris replied with, “I secretly liked the WWE when I was younger. It was kind of a tell for knowing I was gonna be gay.”

Roberts then jokingly asked whether he should be doing some self exploration to which Harris said, “No,” but then started discussing WWE saying, “You know, like tight shorts; they’re oiled up…grappling…it’s like, ‘I’m not supposed to be liking this as much as I am.’”

And he has a point. There is something incredibly homoerotic lying beneath the surface of the testosterone-fueled spectacle. It’s a tangle of limbs, overt exclamations of masculinity, brawls between rivals that get intimately close. You could cut the tension with a proverbial sword — All the while, being cheered on by the masses, with no one batting an eye.

The actor also revealed that he had a love for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, another action-packed series that began in the 1980s featuring a very buff, nearly naked hero with a sassy blunt-banged bob, wearing nothing but tiny brown underwear, boots, and a harness. He collected those action figures, too, by the way.

In the interview Roberts confirms that Harris secretly liked WWE while he starred in Doogie Howser saying, “Oh, if I’d known that me and Doogie are into the same s**t, it would have been awesome.”

To be honest, Harris was definitely onto something, especially given that in recent years, queer and trans folks have been making a splash in the WWE scene with wrestler Aaron Rourke aka “The Dime Piece” or “Evil Gay,” being the first out gay wrestler to win a WWE title in March of 2026 and trans wrestler Gabbi Tuft returning to the sport as her fully-realized self in 2024 after beginning her medical transition in 2021 following open heart surgery in 2019.

So, is WWE really gay? According to Harris, yes. Mystery solved.

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