We didn’t see this one coming! But the mom from “Family Ties”, Meredith Baxter, says she has been hiding a secret for seven year. Baxter revealed on the Today Show that she is a lesbian. Read more on t his story below.

Meredith Baxter, who is most known for her role as Elyse Keaton on “Family Ties”, reveals she is a lesbian and has held in her secret for seven years now.

“I am a lesbian, and it was a later-in-life recognition,” Baxter told Matt Lauer on “Today.” “Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is – not at all. This has only been for the past seven years.”

After three marriages that ended in divorce, Baxter said she chose men she clashed with so she could blame that for the end of the relationships.

But Meredith, 62, began a relationship with a woman seven years ago and finally realized she was gay.

“I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening,” she said. “I never fought it because it was like, oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life. I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships.”

Meredith Baxter has been in a four-year relationship with Nancy Locke, a building contractor that she met through mutual friends.

Locke is openly gay and Baxter had to get to the point of being comfortable so her partner wouldn’t be pushed “back into secrecy,” adding that they “live very out lives in Los Angeles.”

The National Enquirer had reported that she and a female friend appeared “very relaxed and comfortable” aboard a Caribbean cruise sponsored by lesbian travel company Sweet last month. And Perez Hilton had also posted about her looking very cozy with Locke.

She told People, “I feel like I’m being honest for the first time.”

Wow!  It’s really surprising to learn Elyse Keaton is a carpetmuncher!

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