Colton Haynes just shared this heartbreaking fact about his father’s death
Colton Haynes has opened up about the death of his father in the latest issue of Out Magazine and it’s completely breaking our hearts.
The actor, model, and social media star spoke candidly about his father’s suicide, and the events that lead up to it, including his own traumatic coming out experience, his mental health struggles, and how he really did say that he was openly gay.
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In the interview, Haynes speaks about about how, in the small town he grew up in, being gay wasn’t okay, and how, aged 14 after coming out to his family and his schoolmates, he was so severely bullied at school that his older brother had to escort him between classes and to-and-from home.
This traumatic time, and a muted response to coming out from his mother, resulted in Haynes running away from home for a short period, as well as experimenting sexually and taking up drugs. While staying in a friend’s closet, he received a phone call telling him that his father had killed himself.
“I was told that my dad killed himself because he found out I was gay,” Haynes explained to Out. “Of course I was like, ‘‘How could you say something like that?’ And no one will ever really know the truth. But my brother and my mom went to pick up my dad’s stuff, and the only picture on his fridge was my eighth-grade graduation picture. So I was just like, Fuck.”
We can’t even imagine how hard that must have been.
The former Teen Wolf and Arrow star came under fire this year when The Real O’Neal’s actor, Noah Galvin, criticized Haynes method of publicly coming out following an interview with Entertainment Weekly and a post on Tumblr. Similarly, there’s been some backlash on social media about the star’s apparent unwillingness to publicly come out.
Speaking about his initial experience being gay in Hollywood Haynes said that he wished he’d had publicly come out sooner but he was told staying in the closet was “was the only way I was going to be successful.”
However, it seems that Haynes did in fact utter the words “I’m gay” in the EW interview, they just weren’t printed. “I said I was gay, like, 50 times during that interview. hat’s just not the way they chose to print it,” he explained. “I would never try to hold that back, especially for my first out interview.”
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Haynes also spoke about his troubles with anxiety in the interview, something he’s spoken openly about before, and stated that it only became worse the more he tried to hide his sexuality. He now attends therapy sessions, something he claims is “the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Wow, we really, really respect Colton Haynes for being so open about so many difficult issues. It takes a lot to speak candidly, especially in a public forum, and we can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for him talking about his father.
It goes to show that you never know what’s going on in people’s lives and you shouldn’t judge someone for their decisions because you never know what’s really going on.
You can read Colton’s full interview with Out, HERE.
