I consume therefore I am

The most important thing to keep in mind while trying to wrap your head around the whole ordeal is that we don’t know the full picture, and neither me nor anyone outside of Misha and his inner circle really knows the truth. That said, there are three more common interpretations of what went down:

1. The official story: Misha mistakenly said he was bisexual, then recanted his statement because he didn’t want to lie to his fans. 2. Misha said he was bisexual as a joke, then “queerbaited” people (he didn’t want to upset fans that took his joke seriously) until it got too widespread or he felt bad enough to recant it. 3. Misha actually did come out as bisexual then went back into the closet out of fear or protection.

I’ll play devils advocate a bit and say the first interpretation sounds reasonable and is easy enough to take as the truth to non cockles fans or outsiders looking in. (And I did before I fell into the cockles dumpster) But it falls apart a bit when you consider the timeline of events.

Misha said he was bisexual on Friday and then came out as straight three days later on Monday. He went the whole weekend with fans treating him as bisexual before the tweets. And he, notably, only said he was straight after the news escaped the fandom bubble (and was being covered by major news outlets). So if it was a genuine slip of the tongue, why didn’t he correct it in person at the convention? You could of course argue that he didn’t want to upset the fans by saying he was actually straight, but it just...feels so out of character for Misha to co-opt a queer identity like that? Especially because it would’ve been a pretty simple thing to correct.

The same thing goes for the second argument that it was all just a joke in bad taste and people took it too seriously. If it really was a stupid joke, wouldn’t Misha have corrected people once he saw them taking it seriously? For a guy so in tune to queer rights and queer identities, I just don’t think he would a) even make a joke like that (mainly because he’s nowhere close to the kind of person to take queer sexuality as a joke in the first place) and b) be ok with “queerbaiting” fans just because of a joke.

Ok I’m done playing devils advocate now, so we can get into why the going back in the closet interpretation makes more sense.

First, and most obviously, there’s the whole no way this man is straight of it all. Also the men in woods of it all. You can read the poem again through the link, but the gist of it is that even if it didn’t technically detail Misha kissing a man and enjoying it or anything, if that poem was written by literally anyone else you’d assume they were queer. Also the book came out before Bishagate so he couldn’t exactly take it back.

Second, there are good arguments to be made on his motivations to go back into the closet. Whether it’s out of fear or out of protection and not wanting the media to dig into what fans have known for years (read the meta linked here if nothing else, it's great).

The way I see it, Misha implied he was bisexual not as a deliberate attempt to come out for reals super serious, but as a way to start the conversation (which might’ve also been his intention with releasing men in woods) and then he got scared when people were taking it as a Big Deal TM. Causing him to just say he was straight to solve the problem.

Also, if you were curious, all of this still stands for Bishagate 2.0.