WATCH: Dustin Lance Black revisits his closeted, Mormon childhood in new documentary
Dustin Lance Black, like so many gay men, always had a very strong connection with his momBut things were complicated. He grew up in a Mormon home, struggling to come to terms with his sexuality.
One, because he thought that meant he was going to hell. And, two, because didn’t want to disappoint his beloved mother, Roseanne, who raised Black and his two brothers while she was living with polio, paralyzed from the chest down.Their complex relationship is at the heart of the new HBO documentary, Mama’s Boy, based on Black’s revealing 2019 autobiography, Mama’s Boy: A Story From Our Americas.Long before his high-profile marriage to Olympic diver Tom Daley, before his historic Oscar win for Milk, or his work on other celebrated projects like Under The Banner Of Heaven and When We Rise, Black was another closeted kid in suburbia.Related: DLB & Tom Daley, making the world safe for gay dads everywhere by staring down the trollsMama’s Boy revisits that time in the writer-director’s young life, when he lived in fear of his secret getting out and losing his mother.
