WATCH: Coming Out in '70s Would Have Been 'Inopportune,' Says Lily Tomlin

Lily Tomlin, offered a Time cover in 1975 if she was willing to come out, says that would have been “an inopportune time” to make a public statement about being gay.

“I wonder if I’d come out on that ’75 cover of Time if I would have had as long a career as I’ve had, because it would have been an inopportune time to make such a grand statement,” Tomlin said in an interview that aired on HuffPost Live this week. “I mean, Ellen didn’t really come out until 20 years later.” Tomlin also noted that she wanted to be known for her comedy, not her sexual orientation.

“Everybody in the business knew I was gay, and certainly everybody I worked with and everything like that,” she added. “I just never had a press conference to announce it.”

Watch a couple of clips below, and go here for the full interview, in which Tomlin discusses her reunion with Nine to Five costar Jane Fonda in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie and her new film Grandma, in which she plays a cantankerous lesbian grandmother. Grandma director Paul Weitz joins in.

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