Matt Bomer says his early career was 'stolen' by Perez Hilton's outing
Boys in the Band star Matt Bomer reflected on the beginnings of his acting career and being outed by Perez Hilton on the latest episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Dinner's On Me podcast.
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Though he formally came out at Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards in 2012, the actor recalls how his private life was blogger fodder for Perez Hilton in the early 2000s.
"It was a time when folks could kind of take over your own personal narrative before you even had a chance to," recalled the heartthrob. "I remember outlets like Perez Hilton talking about my personal life before I had ever had a chance to even do it myself. And it wasn't because I didn't want to; I didn't even have an opportunity to."
Though he wasn't closeted per se, Bomer called it "a weird time."
"No media outlet was ever going like 'Hey!' I just didn't have a career that warranted that," he said. No one cared about his story at that time, Bomer told Ferguson, because he wasn't a big enough name. "It felt kind of unfair to me, that that was stolen by people who did have a microphone at the time."
Bomer formally came out at the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards in 2012 when he was honored for his HIV activism and he thanked his family on stage during the acceptance speech. "I'd really especially like to thank my beautiful family: Simon, Kit, Walker, Henry. Thank you for teaching me what unconditional love is. You will always be my proudest accomplishment," he said.
The actor told Ferguson that he did it because he didn't want his husband Simon Walls or his three boys "to feel like they were some kind of shameful secret or something I was sweeping under the rug so I could have a great career."
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