Statistics show that young gay people are disproportionately likely to attempt suicide. Now actor Wentworth Miller has been talking about his personal experience of trying to take his life as he struggled with being in the closet.
He opened up at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Seattle on Saturday, just a few weeks after he publicly came out.
“The first time I tried to kill myself I was 15,” he said. “I waited until my family went away for the weekend and I was alone in the house and I swallowed a bottle of pills. 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.”
He adds, “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 was a thousand ways to fail. A thousand ways to portray yourself to not live up to someone else’s standards of what was accepted.”
He also touched on why he didn’t come out earlier – and even categorically denied he was gay a few years ago – as he was worried it would affect his career. “I had multiple opportunities to speak my truth, which was that I was gay,” he said. “But I chose not to. I was out in private, to family and friends … but professionally, publicly, I was not.”
You can take a look at video of Miller’s speech below.
Leave a Reply (if comment does not appear immediately, it may have been held for moderation)