(Photo in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons)
Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma who spent much of her life attacking the LGBTQ+ community, has died. She was 84.
According to an obituary published in The Oklahoman, Bryant died on Dec. 16. The cause of death was not disclosed by her family.
Bryant was born in 1940 in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, a was named Miss Oklahoma in 1958. In the 1960s, Bryant had a successful music career with three Top 20 hits during the decade, and became the spokesperson for Florida orange juice.
Bryant’s legacy as an anti-LGBTQ+ activist began in the 1970s when an ordinance in Miami-Dade County passed prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant spearheaded the campaign to get the ordinance overturned with her political coalition Save Our Children. Bryant’s crusade to demonize LGBTQ+ people as child abusers worked in getting the ordinance overturned. The LGBTQ+ community responded to Bryant’s attacks by boycotting products she endorsed, culminating to the famous video of Bryant getting hit in the face with a pie by a gay rights activist.
According to The Associated Press, following Bryant’s anti-LGBTQ+ crusade her career in entertainment declined, her marriage to her first husband Bob Green broke up and she filed for bankruptcy. More recently, she led Anita Bryant Ministries International.
Bryant later married NASA astronaut Charlie Dry, who died in 2024.
