In a cover interview with gay glossy
Out, actor Colton Haynes talks about coming out and his
father's suicide.
Best known for his roles as Jackson
Whittemore in MTV's Teen Wolf and Roy Harper/Arsenal in The
CW's Arrow, Haynes, 28,
didn't refute rumors in January that he might have come out gay. In
May, he officially came out.
Haynes
told Out that he told
his family and classmates that he's gay at the age of 14 and that he
was advised to keep closeted in Hollywood.
“I feel really
bad that I had to lie for so long,” Haynes
said. “But I was told that was the only way I was going to be
successful. When you're young in this industry, people take
advantage of you, and they literally tell you that your dreams are
going to come true. If you believe that, you'll do anything. And
you do believe it, especially if you're from Kansas.”
Haynes said that he
ran away once for three weeks when he was a teenager. During that
time, his father swallowed 40 oxycodone pills, killing himself.
“I'm the last person in the world who
would say, 'Oh, my dad – pity me.' But I was told that my dad
killed himself because he found out I was gay,” Haynes said.
“So, of course, I lost it and 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,” he added.
Haynes returns to television in the
second season of Scream Queens.