Barry Diller Credits His Success to His Closeted Homosexuality
In a new memoir, the billionaire chairman and founder of IAC says his fear of coming out as gay made him far more fearless in business.
Illustration: Richard Chance for Bloomberg
Despite the current right-wing obsession with gender orientation, it feels pretty retrograde to discuss a public figure’s sex life in 2025. As long as it’s between consenting adults, who cares? And yet it’s impossible to review Barry Diller’s new memoir, Who Knew (Simon & Schuster, May 20) without putting his physical relationships with men front and center.
Not because Diller, the billionaire chairman and founder of media conglomerate IAC, is in a highly publicized marriage with fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg; and not even because he mentions his “sexually confused” childhood in Los Angeles in the book’s second sentence, thereby clearing up years of wink-wink nudge-nudge rumors. It’s imperative to discuss his sexuality — and more specifically, its multi-decade repression — because Diller credits much of his initial business success to being stuck in the closet.