Sean Hayes, an Emmy winning sensation on NBC's Will & Grace for eight years, is returning to the network in a new comedy series this fall, it was announced Thursday (9 May).

'We are thrilled and can't wait,' Hayes wrote on Twitter.

Sean Saves the World has Hayes playing the father of a 14-year-opd girl who moves in with her dad. His character is adjusting to that change as well as having a new boss at work who is quite temperamental.

Hayes came out publicly as a gay man in 2010. It's not yet known if his character on the sitcom will also be gay.

Will & Grace ended its run in 2006, but the sitcom about a gay man and his straight female best friend is still be very much in the current conversation about gay marriage.

Gay marriage foe Rick Santorum, the former US senator who ran for the Republican presidential nomination last year, discussed the show's impact on gay marriage during the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this month.

Ellen DeGeneres got a Time magazine cover when she came out as a lesbian in 1997. A decade or so later, Lance Bass got a People magazine when he announced to the world that he was a gay man and so did Clay Aiken a short time after that.

But in 2o12, several high-profile celebrities came out as gay and didn't find themselves at the center of a media frenzy. Among them: CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Emmy winning actor Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory), and Broadway star-turned TV actor Andrew Rannells (The New Normal).

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association unveiled the nominations for its Golden Globe Awards on Thursday (13 December) and they included some nods for LGBT artists and characters.

Among them are Jim Parsons, the openly gay actor who stars on the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory. Parsons was nominated for best actor in a comedy or musical television series. 

Parsons won the Globe in 2011 and has also won two Emmys for his portrayal of the straight character of Sheldon Cooper.

Neil Patrick Harris, already juggling work on television, in movies and on the stage, is also busy writing a book that will be published in 2014.

The two-time Emmy winner's book is so far untitled but it is a memoir of sorts described as 'imaginative non-fiction that delivers an interactive, non-linear reading experience.'

'I'm excited to be writing a book of the observations and stories of my life,' Harris said in a statement from publisher Crown Archetype.

When Ellen DeGeneres got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week, her daytime talk show was still in summer reruns.

She returned to the air this week – her 10th season – and shared some wonderful highlights from the ceremony.

The multiple Emmy winner can be seen interacting with fans and listening to some moving words from Jimmy Kimmel and Ryan Seacrest.

Said Seacrest: 'One thing I've always admired about Ellen is her courage, courage to be herself.

When looking at the career of Ellen DeGeneres as a whole, it would appear she's had a charmed existance.

Her sitcom, Ellen, ran for four seasons on ABC and she won an Emmy for writing the famous episode in 1997 in which her character came out - at around the same time DeGeneres came out publicly.

Then since 2003, she has won many more Emmys for daytime's The Ellen DeGeneres Show which beings its 10th season next month.

Sean Hayes, an Emmy winning sensation on NBC's Will & Grace for eight years, is returning to the network this fall for a short-term role on the musical-drama Smash.

It was in the first episode of Modern Family in 2009 that gay couple Cam and Mitch introduced their adopted baby, Lily, to the world.

Since then, the couple - played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet - has been an integral part of the comedy's Emmy-winning formula.

Other US networks have taken notice.

This fall, Justin Bartha and Andrew Rannells star as a gay couple having a baby with the help of a surrogate mother in the NBC comedy The New Normal. And over at CBS, Michael Urie and Brandon Routh play a couple in the sitcom Partners.

Chandler Massey, who won an Emmy last month for his performance as gay teen Will Horton on NBC's Days of Our Lives, says his character will be embarking on his first real romance soon.

So far, Will has been seen on-screen kissing a guy named Neil (Jesse Kristofferson) who was instrumental is getting Will cleared of murder.

But Neil seems to be out of the picture and Will has been spending lots of time with his close friend and confidante Sonny Kiriakis (Freddie Smith) who has patiently helped Will get through the coming out process.

Jim Parsons, the openly gay star of The Big Bang Theory, is up for a Primetime Emmy Award.

It was revealed the comedy actor, known for playing Sheldon on the CBS sitcom, was nominated for the Lead Actor in a Comedy Series award today (19 July).

Previously nominated for the past three years, and winning the award in 2010 and 2011, Parsons is against stiff competition.

He is up against Larry David for Curb Your Enthusiasm, Don Cheadle for House of Lies, Louis C.K for Louis, Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock, and Jon Cryer for Two And A Half Men.

Cher has already won an Oscar, a Grammy and an Emmy.

Could a Tony Award be next?

The gay icon, whose stardom dates back to the mid-1960s, tweeted to fans on Monday (25 June) that work is underway on a musical about her life that she hopes to take to Broadway.

'Producers 'are trying to write a musical of my life at moment,' Cher writes. 'It's [a] very interesting idea.'

She said there would be 'three Chers.'