Sean Maher, who plays Sean in NBC's The
Playboy Club, says he's gay and the closet made him miserable.
Maher is best know for playing Simon
Tam in the science fiction series Firefly.
He reprised the character in the follow up film Serenity.
The 36-year-old Maher discussed his
personal life in an interview with Entertainment
Weekly.
He told the entertainment glossy that
he's been in a relationship with boyfriend Paul for nine years and
the couple is raising two children, Sophia Rose, 4, and 14-month-old
Liam Xavier.
Maher said he was nervous, but added
that coming out was “liberating.”
“This is my coming out ball,” he
said. “I've been dying to do this.”
He recounted that after landing his
first acting job in his early twenties he decided to hide his sexual
orientation.
“I was young, I was 22. I didn't
know anything. So that sort of started the idea of, okay, well, I'm
working a lot, I guess I'll just keep that gay part of my life on the
back burner nor now. I went so far as to sleep with women a couple
of times. It was a very confusing time for me.”
“I was so miserable,” he added.
“And you just don't realize that it's eating away at your soul.”
Maher said having a family turned him
around: “I have these beautiful children and this extraordinary
family, and to think in any way shape or form that that's wrong or
that there's shame in that or that there's something to hide actually
turns my stomach.”
In The Playboy Club, Maher plays
Sean, the husband of Bunny Alice (played by Leah Renee). But their
marriage is for show and both characters are gay.