Comedienne Wanda Sykes confessed that she is a lesbian to a crowd of more than 1,000 people rallying outside a gay community center in Las Vegas on Saturday. Wanda further surprised the protesters by announcing that wed her wife in California on October 25.

The Emmy Award-winning stand-up comic divorced her husband of seven years in 1998 but has never publicly discussed her sexual orientation.

Wanda says the passage of Proposition 8, a government amendment to ban same-sex marriage in California, has compelled to be open about who she is.

“You know, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn’t feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life,” Sykes explained to the crowd.

“Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay.”

“I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked — our community was attacked,” she told the crowd.

“Now, I gotta get in their face. I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.”