Charlotte Rae of “The Facts of Life” fame reveals that her husband of 25 years was gay

Poor Mrs. Garrett.

Charlotte Rae, the actress who played Edna Garrett for all those years on The Facts of Life (and before that Different Strokes) has revealed that her former husband was gay.

Rae is writing her memoir, titled The Facts of My Life, and shares that composer and music editor John Strauss came out to her after decades of marriage. He is the father of her two sons.

“First came the shock of what he had done behind my back, then the sting of being deceived for years,” she writes. “All I could feel was the betrayal and, worse than that, my shame.”

Rae, 86, adds: “John’s secret confirmed my feelings of inferiority. That I was less than a woman . . . That I didn’t deserve to be loved and valued.”

Strauss died in 2011.

Rae left The Facts of Life in 1986 after six seasons. The show ran for two more years with Cloris Leachman as the lead. But Rae stepped back into the role of Mrs, Garrett for the movie The Facts of Life Reunion in 2001.

A few years ago, Rae reunited with Leachman and the starring quartet of Lisa Welchel, Nancy McKeon, Mindy Cohn and Kim Fields as well as recurring cast member Geri Jewell who came out publicly as a lesbian in 2011.