I wasn’t born in this country I didn’t
grow up in any one particular religion I
have a mixed-race background and I’m gay
[Music]
growing up I was a target speaking the
right way standing the right way holding
your wrist the right way every day was a
test and there were a thousand ways to
fail
a thousand ways to betray yourself to
not live up to someone else’s standard
of what was acceptable of what was
normal and when you failed the test
which was guaranteed there was a price
to pay
emotional
psychological physical
and like many of you I paid that price
like many of you here tonight I grew up
in what I would call survival
when you’re in survival mode your focus
is on getting through the day in one
piece and when you’re in that mode at
five at ten at 15
there is a lot of space for words like
community for words like us and we
there’s only space for I and me
in fact words like us and we not only
sounded foreign to me at 5 and 10 and 15
they sounded like a lie because if us
and we really existed if there was
really someone out there watching and
listening and caring then I would have
been rescued by now the first time I
I waited until my family went away for
the weekend and I was alone in the house
and I swallowed a bottle of pills
[Music]
I don’t remember what happened over the
next couple of days but I’m pretty sure
come Monday morning I was on the bus
back to school pretending everything was
fine and when someone asked me if that
was a cry for help I say no because I
told no one
you only cry for help if you believe
there’s help to cry for
and I didn’t
I wanted out I wanted gone
at 15
I and me can be a lonely place and it
will only get you so far that feeling of
being singular and different and alone
carried over into my 20s and into my
thirties when I was 33 I started working
on a TV show that was successful not
only here in the States but also abroad
which meant over the next four years I
was traveling to Asia to the Middle East
to Europe and everywhere in between and
in that time I gave thousands of
interviews I had multiple opportunities
to speak my truth
which is that I was gay but I chose not
to
I was out privately to family and
friends to the people I’d learned to
trust over time but professionally
publicly I was not
asked to choose between being out of
integrity and out of the closet
I chose the former I chose to lie I
chose to dissemble because when I
thought about the possibility of coming
out about how that might impact me and
the career I’d worked so hard for I was
filled with fear fear and anger and a
stubborn resistance that had built up
over many years when I thought about
that kid somewhere out there who might
be inspired were moved by me taking a
stand and speaking my truth my mental
response was consistently no thing I
thought I’ve spent over a decade
building this career alone by myself
and from a certain point of view
[Music]
it’s all I have but now I’m supposed to
put that at risk to be a role model to
someone I’ve never met who I’m not even
sure it exists I didn’t make any sense
to me
that did not resonate
by 2011 I’d made the decision to walk
away from acting and many of the things
I previously believed is so important to
me and after I’d given up the scripts
and the sets which I dreamed of as a
child and the resulting attention and
scrutiny which I had not dreamed of as a
child the only thing I was left with was
what I had when I started I mean and it
several weeks ago when I was drafting my
letter to the st. Petersburg
International Film Festival declining
their invitation to attend a small
nagging voice in my head insisted that
no one would notice that no one was
watching or listening or caring but this
time finally I knew that voice was wrong
I thought if even one person notices
this letter in which I speak my truth
and integrate my small story into a much
larger and more important one is worth
sending I thought let me be to someone
else what no one was to me let me send a
message to that kid maybe in America
maybe someplace far overseas maybe
somewhere deep inside a kid who’s being
targeted at home or at school or in the
streets that someone is watching and
listening and caring that there is an us
that there is a we and that kid or
teenager or adult is loved and they are
[Music] you
grow up in any one particular religion I
have a mixed-race background and I’m gay
[Music]
growing up I was a target speaking the
right way standing the right way holding
your wrist the right way every day was a
test and there were a thousand ways to
fail
a thousand ways to betray yourself to
not live up to someone else’s standard
of what was acceptable of what was
normal and when you failed the test
which was guaranteed there was a price
to pay
emotional
psychological physical
and like many of you I paid that price
like many of you here tonight I grew up
in what I would call survival
when you’re in survival mode your focus
is on getting through the day in one
piece and when you’re in that mode at
five at ten at 15
there is a lot of space for words like
community for words like us and we
there’s only space for I and me
in fact words like us and we not only
sounded foreign to me at 5 and 10 and 15
they sounded like a lie because if us
and we really existed if there was
really someone out there watching and
listening and caring then I would have
been rescued by now the first time I
I waited until my family went away for
the weekend and I was alone in the house
and I swallowed a bottle of pills
[Music]
I don’t remember what happened over the
next couple of days but I’m pretty sure
come Monday morning I was on the bus
back to school pretending everything was
fine and when someone asked me if that
was a cry for help I say no because I
told no one
you only cry for help if you believe
there’s help to cry for
and I didn’t
I wanted out I wanted gone
at 15
I and me can be a lonely place and it
will only get you so far that feeling of
being singular and different and alone
carried over into my 20s and into my
thirties when I was 33 I started working
on a TV show that was successful not
only here in the States but also abroad
which meant over the next four years I
was traveling to Asia to the Middle East
to Europe and everywhere in between and
in that time I gave thousands of
interviews I had multiple opportunities
to speak my truth
which is that I was gay but I chose not
to
I was out privately to family and
friends to the people I’d learned to
trust over time but professionally
publicly I was not
asked to choose between being out of
integrity and out of the closet
I chose the former I chose to lie I
chose to dissemble because when I
thought about the possibility of coming
out about how that might impact me and
the career I’d worked so hard for I was
filled with fear fear and anger and a
stubborn resistance that had built up
over many years when I thought about
that kid somewhere out there who might
be inspired were moved by me taking a
stand and speaking my truth my mental
response was consistently no thing I
thought I’ve spent over a decade
building this career alone by myself
and from a certain point of view
[Music]
it’s all I have but now I’m supposed to
put that at risk to be a role model to
someone I’ve never met who I’m not even
sure it exists I didn’t make any sense
to me
that did not resonate
by 2011 I’d made the decision to walk
away from acting and many of the things
I previously believed is so important to
me and after I’d given up the scripts
and the sets which I dreamed of as a
child and the resulting attention and
scrutiny which I had not dreamed of as a
child the only thing I was left with was
what I had when I started I mean and it
several weeks ago when I was drafting my
letter to the st. Petersburg
International Film Festival declining
their invitation to attend a small
nagging voice in my head insisted that
no one would notice that no one was
watching or listening or caring but this
time finally I knew that voice was wrong
I thought if even one person notices
this letter in which I speak my truth
and integrate my small story into a much
larger and more important one is worth
sending I thought let me be to someone
else what no one was to me let me send a
message to that kid maybe in America
maybe someplace far overseas maybe
somewhere deep inside a kid who’s being
targeted at home or at school or in the
streets that someone is watching and
listening and caring that there is an us
that there is a we and that kid or
teenager or adult is loved and they are
[Music] you
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