Ed Koch - Personal Life

Personal Life

Koch is a lifelong bachelor, and his sexuality became an issue in the 1977 mayoral election with the appearance of placards and posters (disavowed by the Cuomo campaign) with the slogan "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo." Koch denounced the attack. During the campaign and after becoming mayor, Koch began attending public events with former Miss America, well-known television game show panelist and consumer advocate Bess Myerson.

Koch has refused comment on his actual sexual experiences, writing:

What do I care? I'm 73 years old. I find it fascinating that people are interested in my sex life at age 73. It's rather complimentary! But as I say in my book, my answer to questions on this subject is simply "Fuck off." There have to be some private matters left.

Randy Shilts, in And the Band Played On, his influential history of the early AIDS epidemic in America, discusses the possibility that Koch ignored the developing epidemic in New York City in 1982–1983 because he was afraid of lending credence to rumors of his homosexuality. Author and activist Larry Kramer describes the former mayor as a "closeted gay man" whose fear of being 'outed' kept him from aggressively addressing the AIDS epidemic in New York City in the early 1980s. Kramer lampooned Koch's sexuality and perceived indifference to the plight of AIDS victims in The Normal Heart, in which the protagonist, an AIDS activist, laments that the only way to get the mayor's attention is to "hire a hunky hustler and send him up to Gracie Mansion with our plea tattooed on his cock." John Cameron Mitchell's movie Shortbus features a gay Koch-like older gentleman lamenting his poor choices while mayor of New York City. In the 2009 Kirby Dick documentary Outrage, investigative journalist Wayne Barrett of The Village Voice states that Koch is gay.