Daniel Craig has revealed he likes to frequent gay bars to avoid the “aggressive d*ck swinging” that one typically encounters at straight venues.
“I’ve been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember. One of the reasons: because I don’t get into fights in gay bars that often,” the Bond star told the host of the Lunch with Bruce podcast.
The 53-year-old, who is married to Hollywood star, Rachel Weisz, said that when he was young, spending a night out at gay bars allowed him to avoid “being in a punch-up”, which he said happened “quite a lot” in venues for straigh people.
Daniel Craig stars as James Bond 007 in pursuit of an Mi6 traitor in a scene from "Quantum of Solace"
© AP Photo / Sony Pictures, Susie Allnutt, FILE
Craig added that back in the days when he was single, it was also a good way to meet women.
“[Gay bars] would just be a good place to go. Everybody was chill ...
everybody. You didn’t really have to sort of state your sexuality. It was ok. And it was a very safe place to be. And I could meet girls there, because there were a lot of girls there for exactly the same reason I was there. It was kind of an ulterior motive.”
The English actor who won international fame playing James Bond in the eponymous film series, beginning with Casino Royale (2006), and in four more blockbusters up until No Time to Die (2021) recalled how he and the podcast’s host, his long-time friend Bruce Bozzi, were photographed hugging outside a gay bar in Venice Beach, California, in 2010.
While the incident had triggered speculation about Craig’s sexuality, the actor himself laughingly dismissed the insinuations.
“We’re tactile, we love each other. We give each other hugs, it’s ok. We’re two f***ing grown men … and the irony is, you know, we kind of got caught, I suppose, which was kind of weird because we were doing nothing f***ing wrong.”
Craig recently added fuel to the fire of speculations after he told Stephen Colbert that he kissed all of his leading male co-stars, which he believes “helps break the ice.”
Rami Malek, who took on the role of a James Bond supervillain in No Time to Die, had earlier mentioned in an appearance on The Late Show in 2019 that he had enjoyed a lip-lock moment with Craig.
Rami Malek poses in the press room with the award for best performance by an actor in a motion picture, drama for "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2019, in Beverly Hills, Calif.
© AP Photo / Jordan Strauss
Twitter users zeroed in on the candid admissions made by “007”, with some saying that they similarly frequented such venues because of the “fewer fights”.
However, others on social media had more than a few sarcastic comments about his “proclivities”.