Lisa Rinna has never been especially interested in softening her language. Two years ago, she warned that the United States was flirting with authoritarianism. Now, she says, it’s no longer flirting.
“We’ve ended up in a really bad place,” Rinna told The Advocate in an interview on Tuesday.
Rinna and her husband, actor Harry Hamlin, will be honored this summer with the 2026 Nancy Pelosi Equality Ally Award from Equality PAC, the political arm of the Congressional Equality Caucus. The award recognizes public figures who have demonstrated sustained commitment to LGBTQ+ rights. It will be presented in June at the group’s National Pride Gala in Washington, D.C.
“Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin represent the very best of what allyship looks like in action,” Equality PAC co-chairs Rep. Mark Takano of California and Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York said in a statement. “Across decades of groundbreaking work on screen, they have not only helped shape our culture, but consistently used their voices to affirm the dignity, humanity, and rights of LGBTQ people.”
“Their support has been proud, unwavering, and deeply meaningful to a community that continues to fight for full equality,” the congressmen added.
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Previous honorees include Eugene Levy, Ted Danson, and Mary Steenburgen. For Rinna, the recognition also carries personal meaning. “I think she’s a rockstar, icon, amazing,” Rinna said of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, for whom the award is named. “So I think just to go and be given this award, it just means a lot.”
The recognition comes after decades of mainstream success for both performers. Rinna became a household name on Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place before later joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, earning a Soap Opera Digest Award and multiple Daytime Emmy nominations as a host. She recently made headlines as an original traitor on Peachock’s The Traitors. Hamlin rose to prominence on L.A. Law and in films such as Clash of the Titans, and later earned an Emmy nomination for Mad Men.
But both say the honor reflects something beyond their work on screen. Rinna described the current political moment as one that demands urgency. “Harry and I discuss it constantly,” she said. “Why aren’t people just talking about the authoritarian takeover that’s happening right in front of our eyes? Why aren’t we just talking about that?”
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In a 2024 interview with The Advocate’s sibling publication PRIDE, Rinna warned that the country risked losing its democratic foundation. That warning, she said now, feels less like speculation than reality.
“The big agenda, the thing that’s going on, is a full-on Hitlerian authoritarian takeover of the greatest brand ever created in human history, which is the United States of America,” Hamlin told The Advocate on Tuesday. “And we’re losing it.”
For him, the mechanism is rooted in a familiar politics of fear.
“To demonize minorities, that’s the playbook,” Hamlin said. He pointed to the targeting of transgender people, alongside immigrants and other marginalized groups, as central to that strategy. “It’s all about creating fear around the other,” he said. “Right now, the other is trans people, it’s gay people, it’s minorities, it’s Black people, and it’s immigrants.”
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Rinna said that in a moment like this, people with public platforms have a responsibility to raise their voices.
“I just try to speak out, speak my mind, support, and stand up for everyone that doesn’t have the same voice or is too fearful to do it,” she said. “A lot of people won’t take that stand.”
Her connection to the LGBTQ+ community, she added, is personal. “Some of my very best friends in life are gay and trans, and they are so special to me. They’re like family,” Rinna said. “So I feel very strongly about protecting the underdog always.”
Standing up for LGBTQ+ people, she said, is not strategic. “They have been the most supportive of me in my career, and I just think that it’s my job to give back.”
Hamlin said he has been watching global politics closely, pointing to Sunday’s election in Hungary as both a warning and a source of cautious optimism. Voters ousted longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after more than a decade in power, rejecting a system widely criticized for curbing press freedom and advancing anti-LGBTQ+ policies. The race drew international attention, including a visit from Vice President JD Vance, who traveled to Hungary to rally support for Orbán and amplified President Donald Trump’s backing of the embattled leader. After the loss, Vance downplayed the result, calling it disappointing but not consequential.
For Hamlin, the outcome sparked optimism. “That shows us that we can reverse this trend, that we can take our country back,” he said, calling the result “a harbinger of wonderful things to come.”
But he also stressed the timeline. “What happened in Hungary took more than 10 years,” he added. Hamlin argued that silence now is not neutral. “When our kids or our grandkids ask, ‘What did you do at that moment when democracy was being stolen?’” he said, “that’s the question.”
His own commitment, he noted, dates back decades. In 1982, Hamlin starred in Making Love, a film about a married man who comes to understand he is gay and falls in love with another man. At the time, Hollywood had little appetite for stories centered on same-sex relationships.
“At the time, nobody wanted to touch it,” Hamlin said. “But it was something that needed to be expressed, discussed, talked about.”
“If we can make enough noise so that people recognize that this is another step toward making the LGBTQ community completely accepted,” he added, “then we’ve done our job.”
