Comic Todd Glass came out gay Monday
during an episode of WTF
with Marc Maron.
Glass, 47, is best known for competing
on the second and third seasons of the NBC reality series Last
Comic Standing. He's appeared regularly on Jimmy Kimmel
Live!, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Louie.
On the podcast, Glass told Maron that
he decided to come out publicly in an effort to help troubled gay
teens who are considering suicide.
“I cannot listen to stories about
kids killing themselves any longer and not [think], 'When are you
going to have a little blood on your shirt for not being honest about
who you are?'” an emotional Glass said.
Fear, not shame, Glass insisted, kept
him from publicly acknowledging his sexual orientation. He added
that he could see himself “reverting” in some situations.
“As much as I told myself coming
here, 'Get over it. It's not a big deal.' That is true. I needed
to tell myself that – fucking stop it. But also I can spend a lot
of time saying, 'This didn't happen overnight.' This happened, you
know, 25 years ago when I started to not be honest with who I was.”
“I don't think tomorrow if I was
somewhere – you know, whenever you need a fake scenario, I can
never come up with it – but you're somewhere and someone says,
'Who's this for?' I'm not going to be able to be at the department
store and go, 'Oh, it's for my …'”
“Roommate?” Maron asked. “Is
that what you would say?”
“No, I won't say that, because that's
embarrassing. I will not be that guy. You know these guys, they're
like 70: 'My roommate.' 'It's my accountant.' Accountant? Really?
He lives with you? 'We're very close.'”
Glass said his parents are “cool with
it” and have known for about 15 years.
Glass also hosts his own podcast The
Todd Glass Show on the Nerdist network.