Denzel Washington Says His Gladiator II Gay Kiss Was Cut

By Bethy Squires, a Vulture news blogger who covers comedy

It was the smooch too powerful to be shown. In a time of war, don’t we need a little love? Denzel Washington told Gayety that his queer kiss was cut from Gladiator II. “I actually kissed a man in the film but they took it out, they cut it, I think they got chicken,” he said. “I kissed a guy full on the lips and I guess they weren’t ready for that yet.”

This isn’t the only gentleman-on-gentleman peck cut from the film. Earlier this year, Paul Mescal and Ridley Scott discussed the excision of a scene where Mescal killed Pedro Pascal on the forehead. “I didn’t tell Ridley I was gonna do it. And then I was nervous after we did it because I thought he was going to fucking hate it,” Mescal told Cinemablend. “So I nervously go over the radio being like, ‘Ridley? Did you like the kiss on the forehead? Yay or nay?’ And there was this kind of, like, [static] ‘I’m afraid I did.’ So I don’t know where it got lost in the edit.” So we’re just leaving all the kisses on the cutting room floor, then?

It sounds like Denzel’s kiss wasn’t exactly a moment of tenderness in the film. “I killed him about five minutes later,” Washington said. “It’s Gladiator. It’s the kiss of death.”