Nate Berkus Takes Title Of First Openly Gay Male Daytime Host

BY ON TOP MAGAZINE STAFF 
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Nate Berkus becomes the first openly gay man to host a nationally 

syndicated daytime show with today's premiere of The Nate Berkus Show.

The interior designer became a television personality offering design

 advice to viewers on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Guests lined up for the show's inaugural week include actress-comedian 

Kim Coles (Living Single, In Living Color), singer Dolly Parton and 

Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of former U.S. Senator from 

North Carolina John Edwards.

Tragedy hit the 38-year-old Berkus in 2004, when he lost his partner, photographer Fernando Bengoechea, while vacationing in Sri Lanka.

 Bengoechea is presumed dead from a tsunami that hit the island country.

“[A]fter I survived the tsunami and lost my partner in 2004, I got so many

 letters from kids around the country who decided to come out watching

 what a relationship that they wanted to have for themselves could be like,” Berkus told Greg Hernandez at GregInHollywood.com. “I was so grateful to 

Oprah for telling that story not as a gay couple that went through a tragedy 

but as a couple that went through a tragedy.”

He added that he doesn't define himself by his sexuality, a philosophy
 that extends to his show.

“I do feel a responsibility, but it's not a responsibility because I'm a gay
 man and on daytime television,” he said. “It's a responsibility to the
 people who are giving me an hour of their day and I want to set the
best example that I can.”