Sebastian Croft’s £41,500 Traitors Win Will Help Queer Refugees

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Sebastian Croft’s £41,500 Traitors Win Will Help Queer Refugees

Sebastian Croft has won The Celebrity Traitors, and his share of the prize is going towards a cause he supported before entering the castle.

The queer Heartstopper actor and comedian Romesh Ranganathan emerged as joint winners in the October 30 final, securing £83,000 for their chosen charities.

ITV News reported that each winner’s share is £41,500.

Croft chose Choose Love, while Ranganathan selected the Refugee Council.

A cause with a personal connection

Speaking about his choice during the programme, Croft explained that he had previously volunteered with Choose Love.

He said the money would support refugees and displaced people, with a particular emphasis on queer people.

Choose Love is a broader humanitarian organisation, and Croft highlighted LGBTQ+ people as a particular focus of his contribution.

The charity supports people displaced by conflict and persecution through emergency assistance and longer-term help.

For Croft, the win follows a public career in which queer identity has become increasingly central to his work and advocacy.

In an October interview with Rolling Stone UK, he discussed how being part of Heartstopper helped challenge his earlier concerns that being open about his sexuality might limit his acting opportunities.

What the charity says the money means

In a statement reported by PA and published by The Standard, Choose Love’s acting chief executive Emma Stevenson thanked Croft for his longstanding support.

“This vital funding will quite literally change and save lives.”

Stevenson explained that the contribution would extend assistance to refugees and displaced people, particularly LGBTQ+ individuals facing violence and persecution because of who they are.

Ranganathan’s chosen organisation also celebrated his victory.

Charity Times reported that the Refugee Council praised its patron and described its work helping refugees rebuild their lives in Britain.

Criticism, and the people beyond the television show

The donations prompted criticism from some commentators.

Attitude reported that presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer objected on X to the winners choosing refugee charities and questioned whether those organisations needed the additional funding.

The charities’ responses offer another way to understand the outcome: through the practical support the winnings can help provide.

For viewers, the programme’s appeal was its mix of alliances, accusations and dramatic reversals.

For the organisations chosen by the winners, the final also created an opportunity to explain why their work matters.

Croft and Ranganathan leave the series with a shared victory and £83,000 directed towards people seeking safety.

That gives this particular television ending a significance beyond finding out who was faithful all along.

📷 BBC / Studio Lambert / Paul Chappells

For more LGBTQ+ stories, visit B-Gay on YouTube.

Poodle Beach Gets a Historical Marker Celebrating Decades of LGBTQ+ Community

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Poodle Beach Gets a Historical Marker Celebrating Decades of LGBTQ+ Community

For generations of LGBTQ+ visitors, Poodle Beach has meant more than a sunny afternoon beside the Atlantic.

It has been somewhere to meet friends, find community and enjoy the simple pleasure of being around people who understand.

On October 29, 2026, Delaware formally recognized that history with the unveiling of a State Historical Marker in Rehoboth Beach.

The City of Rehoboth Beach confirmed that state and local officials gathered for the ceremony at Prospect Street and the South Boardwalk.

A lesbian pioneer in the story

The roots of Rehoboth’s queer seaside community reach back to Louisa d’Andelot Carpenter, a wealthy du Pont descendant, equestrian and amateur aviator who had relationships with women.

According to Delaware’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Carpenter hosted queer friends at her family’s beachfront home beginning in the 1930s.

Her gatherings offered guests a chance to socialize among friends at a time when many could not live openly.

The state’s historical account also documents her longtime relationship with Broadway singer Libby Holman, connecting Delaware’s shore with the theatrical world.

In later decades, the beach near the Carpenter mansion attracted growing numbers of queer visitors, with its distance from the busiest parts of town offering relative privacy.

That history helped shape the community that would develop along the shoreline.

From gathering place to gay beach landmark

The new marker distinguishes the earlier gathering place near the Carpenter mansion from the section of beach that gained popularity in the late 1970s and became known as Poodle Beach.

Carpenter’s welcome was part of this longer history, which generations of visitors continued to build.

Even the origin of the beach’s memorable name remains uncertain.

As the Washington Blade reported in its coverage of the unveiling, the marker also commemorates the annual Labor Day Drag Volleyball Game, which ran from 1988 to 2019 and drew thousands.

Beach holidays, friendships and spectacularly theatrical volleyball all belong in this history.

A community asked to be remembered

Metro Weekly reported that Delaware’s historical marker programme is community-led, with residents and organizations applying to recognize places of significance.

The city identifies Frank Cooper as the applicant behind the Poodle Beach marker.

That is a fitting detail for a place whose importance came from the people who kept returning.

They made plans, brought friends and helped turn a stretch of shoreline into a familiar meeting place.

The marker preserves that social history for visitors who might otherwise walk past without knowing it.

For those who remember seeking out gay beaches before feeling comfortable elsewhere, the recognition may carry particular meaning.

Sometimes a place becomes important because it lets you relax into a version of yourself that the rest of the world rarely sees.

Now Poodle Beach’s place in Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history is there for everyone to read.

📷 AI / stock photography

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Two Husbands Went for Gelato and Got Hate. This Devon Shop Stood Up for Them

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Two Husbands Went for Gelato and Got Hate. This Devon Shop Stood Up for Them

Two husbands visiting a seaside gelato shop should have made for a straightforward happy photograph. When Nick and Ant stopped at Taste of Sidmouth in Devon, the family business was pleased to share their visit online.

Homophobic comments followed. The shop responded by defending the couple and reaffirming that LGBTQ+ customers belong there.

The incident was reported in late October by Scene.

A welcome worth defending

Nick and Ant are married content creators based in London. Their full names are Nick Toteda and Anthony Cushion; the pair have discussed their marriage and life working together in a joint podcast appearance.

For this visit, the attraction was homemade gelato. SWNS reported that they posed with Ferrero Rocher and strawberry flavours. After abusive responses appeared beneath the shop’s celebratory post, the business said it removed the worst comments.

Its response also assured Nick and Ant that the staff had been delighted to meet them.

The family behind the counter

There is a close family connection behind that stance. Manager Sophie credited her mother, owner Cathy Inglis, with the values she brought to the response.

The business’s own website offers a glimpse of their working relationship. Sophie and Thomas make the gelato, while Cathy continues running the business. The family describes using traditional Italian methods and local Devon ingredients.

Asked on the website about her motivation, Sophie explains that she wants to make her mother proud and continue growing what Cathy has built.

That gives the story a particularly personal dimension: a daughter carrying forward a family business and the values she associates with her mum.

Support, and a simple standard

According to Scene, hundreds of supporters rallied behind the shop. Sophie was especially moved by people thanking the family for speaking out.

She felt that challenging homophobia should be an ordinary expectation: “It should be normal. It should be the bare minimum.”

The shop pledged to continue supporting LGBTQ+ people and celebrating Pride.

For readers who have ever wondered whether being seen with a partner might change the welcome they receive, there is something reassuring in that response. The pleasure of an everyday outing matters — including the freedom to enjoy ice cream with your husband.

📷 @tasteofsidmouth

For more LGBTQ+ stories, visit B-Gay on YouTube.

Gay Rodeo Turns 50: A Half-Century of Cowboys, Courage and Chosen Family

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Gay Rodeo Turns 50: A Half-Century of Cowboys, Courage and Chosen Family

Fifty years ago, Phil Ragsdale wanted to hold a gay rodeo. Getting the animals proved much harder than finding the idea.

According to OutHistory’s account of the first Reno Gay Rodeo, local ranchers repeatedly refused to rent livestock after learning that the event was sponsored by the gay community. Ragsdale finally secured animals from a rancher in Fallon the night before the rodeo.

On October 2, 1976, the event went ahead at the Washoe County Fairgrounds in Reno, Nevada. What began as a charitable fundraising idea became the starting point for a lasting LGBTQ+ sporting tradition.

Fifty years later, another gathering

This October, that tradition reached another milestone. As Gayety reports, the 38th World Gay Rodeo Finals returned to El Reno, Oklahoma, in gay rodeo’s 50th-anniversary year.

The International Gay Rodeo Association’s official programme placed the event at the Canadian County Expo & Event Center from October 22–25, with rodeo competition on the final two days.

The schedule combined familiar contests such as bull riding, barrel racing and team roping with gay rodeo’s distinctive camp events. Royalty competitions added western wear, public presentation and entertainment to the weekend.

IGRA describes its events as welcoming participants without discrimination and supporting charitable organizations alongside the sport.

The mother everyone called “mom”

For a sense of what that welcome means, an earlier visit to the El Reno finals offers a particularly human example.

Reporting for KOSU in October 2024, journalist Anna Pope met Anna Sherman, a competitor from Mangum, Oklahoma. Sherman had become involved because her son asked her to compete with him.

Among other competitors, she was commonly known as “mom.”

In that same report, then-rodeo director Mark Christensen described the community’s priorities: “We are about family.”

Those remarks come from the 2024 finals, but they offer valuable background to the anniversary: this is a sporting community where relatives can join in and friendships can become lasting sources of support.

A tradition with a future

The early obstacles make the anniversary worth remembering. Before there could be a circuit, championship weekends or generations of shared memories, someone had to insist that a gay rodeo could happen at all.

Ragsdale’s determination helped create that opportunity. Fifty years later, another group of competitors has gathered in an arena under the gay rodeo banner.

The story holds competition, humour and western tradition together with something many LGBTQ+ people recognize immediately: the pleasure of finding a place where you belong.

📷 @igrarodeo

For more LGBTQ+ stories, visit B-Gay on YouTube.

Tuc Watkins and Andrew Rannells Share a Halloween Kiss in Ghostly Sailor Costumes

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Tuc Watkins and Andrew Rannells Share a Halloween Kiss in Ghostly Sailor Costumes

Tuc Watkins and Andrew Rannells brought a little romance to their spooky sailor costumes this Halloween — including a kiss captured in the middle of a busy city street.

In photographs shared on Watkins’ Instagram account, the actors wear striped tops, battered white trousers and sailor hats, with fishing nets and seaweed-like decorations draped across their outfits. Dark eye makeup completes the ghostly effect.

One picture catches the couple in a dramatic dip and kiss. Others show them posing together outdoors and settling into a booth, still surrounded by their elaborate nautical accessories.

The explanation is very Tuc

Watkins gave the costumes a detailed backstory, saying they were inspired by French First World War sailors François Hervé and Yves Thomas, whom he described as shipmates who died aboard the warship Bouvet in March 1915.

That is the inspiration as described in his caption; the post does not establish that the two historical men were romantically involved.

Then Watkins brought the explanation back to Halloween with a perfectly dry punchline.

“But it’s really just an excuse to wear eyeliner.”

Rannells sounded satisfied with their work, commenting: “We really nailed this.” He added a heart.

From playing partners to being partners

The couple’s shared theatrical history makes the coordinated look especially fitting. They first met while playing boyfriends in the 2018 Broadway revival of The Boys in the Band, with Watkins as Hank and Rannells as Larry.

They later returned to those roles in the Netflix film adaptation. As the pair discussed in a joint interview with Out, the characters’ difficult relationship was quite different from their own life together.

The two have also worked together on Black Monday. Their Halloween photos offer another, considerably less formal chance to see them sharing a scene.

The affection underneath the costumes

Speaking to PinkNews in 2025, Watkins described being happy with Rannells and spoke warmly about the bond between his partner and his children.

It is a lovely piece of background to these playful pictures. Behind the ripped clothing, dramatic makeup and carefully arranged netting are two men who have built a relationship beyond the productions that brought them together.

And for this particular night, they clearly enjoyed committing to the same very theatrical idea. The costumes supply the Halloween spectacle; the kiss supplies the romance.

As for the eyeliner? Watkins has already supplied all the justification anyone needs.

📷 @tucwatkins

For more LGBTQ+ stories, visit B-Gay on YouTube.

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