John Browne was considered one of the titans of the industry when he was the CEO of BP Oil, a multi-billion dollar British multinational oil and gas company. Browne ran BP until 12 years ago, in 2007, when his career abruptly ended after a U.K. newspaper outed him as gay.
Browne discussed the experience and its aftermath on Bloomberg’s news talk series Leaders With Lacqua Goes Green. The series features industry leaders discussing climate change and its impact on business.
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“I am immensely pleased that I was outed when I was 60, just under 60, because if I had not been outed, I probably would have said I could stay in the closet,” Browne shared.
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When asked whether he held any bitterness or ill will towards those who outed him, Browne said, “Curiously, no. I mean, I thought that I looked at myself and realized that I had a set of assumptions which were built into me in the ’50s and ’60s.”
He shared that much of his attitude about homosexuality came from his upbringing. He said his mother told him, “Never be an identifiable member of the minority because, when the going gets tough, the majority of us hurt the minority.”
She also told him “Never tell anyone a secret because they’ll they’ll use it against you.” Browne said that he found both of those statements to be “really true in my life experience.”
The anti-LGBTQ+ culture of the business world also prevented him from leaving the closet. He said that “homophobic jokes and things like that” made it “so I got into the closet, threw away the key, and then I didn’t change anything. And of course, life started changing, but I didn’t change in line with life, that aspect of me.”
Browne wrote about his experience in a book titled The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good Business. The book supports creating supportive environments for LGBTQ+ people in business settings.
Browne said that during his book tour, when he was done presenting, a man stood up at the end of a reading and told him, “You know, I work for one of your competitors. We all knew you were gay for a long time. The problem was none of us were brave enough to come and tell you you were gay.”
“I thought that said everything,” Browne remarked.
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