Joel Grey, the legendary Broadway performer, recently opened up about his sexuality, coming out as a gay man.

Joel Grey Comes Out

Grey, 82, has been in the entertainment industry for roughly seven decades and is now ready to come out.”I don’t like labels, but if you have to put a label on it, I’m a gay man,” Grey told People magazine.

“All the people close to me have known for years who I am,” Grey added. “[Yet] it took time to embrace that other part of who I always was.”

One of the people close to Grey who’s known about his sexuality is his daughter, actress Jennifer Grey.

“I feel very happy for my dad that he has come to a point in his life where he feels safe and comfortable enough to declare himself in a public way as a gay man,” Jennifer Grey, best known for starring in Dirty Dancing, told People. “Mostly because the more people are free to own their true nature and can hopefully come closer to love and accept themselves as they really are, no matter what age, no matter how long it takes, to finally be free of the lies or half truths, it is freedom.”

Prior to coming to terms with his sexuality, Grey was married to actress Jo Wilder for 24 years. Together, they had Jennifer and son James Katz, a chef.

Grey is best known for playing the MC in both the stage and screen version of Cabaret, for which he won an Oscar. He originated the role of George M. Cohan in 1973 musical George M! , and the Wizard of Oz in Wicked . In the Chicago revival, he played Amos Hart.