Journalist Garrett Glaser was the first “out of the closet” local TV news anchor and correspondent in the United States. He “came out” while on the air on the Channel 4 News at KNBC-TV, Los Angeles, on December 5th, 1994, when he was 41.

He grew up in Manhattan in the early 1960’s and knew he felt same-sex attractions by the age of eleven. He came out to his parents in 1967, at the age of 14. The first thing his mother told him was, “You are going to a psychiatrist right now, young man! We are going to nip this in the bud!”

Garrett received his high school diploma from New York’s Dalton School and worked his way through the undergraduate program at the City University of New York, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and Cinema Studies in 1975. His Master of Arts degree in Communication Management is from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.

Garrett traveled the world for four years as a correspondent for Paramount Television’s Entertainment Tonight and later served as a business reporter for CNBC Business News, based in New York. Earlier, Garrett served as the Media and Entertainment News anchor for WABC-TV Channel 7 Eyewitness News (ABC) in New York and was also a hard news reporter for Post- Newsweek’s WPLG-TV Channel 10 Eyewitness News (ABC) in Miami/Fort Lauderdale. In the early days of his career, Garrett covered breaking news and the US Navy for WVEC-TV 13 News (ABC) in Hampton Roads, Virginia and served as a general assignment reporter for WPTA-TV 21 Alive Newsroom (ABC) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He also served as an off-air newswriter and story producer for WXYZ-TV Channel 7 Action News, Detroit (ABC).

Garrett was the co-founder of the Electronic Media Task Force of the National Lesbian/Gay Journalists Association and was also the first person to “come out” to the entire radio and television news industry during a panel discussion in 1992 at the annual convention of the Radio/TV News Directors Association in San Antonio, Texas. From 1989 to 1993, he served on the Board of Directors of GLAAD/LA.

He estimates he has interviewed more than 1,600 celebrities during his career, including: Elizabeth Taylor, Oprah Winfrey, Cher, Robert DeNiro, Diana Ross, George H.W. Bush, Tony Bennett, Mike Tyson, Warren Beatty, Garth Brooks, and Mick Jagger.

Now retired, he lives in San Diego with his partner of 25 years and their two-year-old Bernedoodle.