LOSING A FATHER, GAINING A FAMILY

Growing up, supermodel Maggie Rizer felt having a gay dad made her different. Yet after his death from AIDS, it was entering the fashion community that helped her feel like she belonged again

My family has been holidaying at the same wooden cottage on the fringes of Lake Ontario since the 1800s. As long summer days ease into night, I sit on the porch and watch my kids eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hunt for frogs in the damp grass. To me, it’s a place of peace, a way of accessing a simpler sort of life, but it’s also the place where, more than 30 years ago, I got the call I’d known was coming all my life: my dad had passed away. Growing up, I always knew my dad, Kevin, was gay. I was born on Staten Island into an Irish Catholic family in the late 1970s and, at the time, he was struggling with coming out because of the stigma around…

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Red UK (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2023

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