Jonathan Bailey and Elton John discussed their own experiences with coming out in the public eye during a conversation that was part of the inaugural Elton John Impact Awards, which honored the Wicked star and other trailblazing LGBTQ+ community members and prominent allies.
During the discussion, John asked Bailey if he’s ever felt pressured to hide the fact that he was gay, or if he might have been scared to come out, or if he had enough confidence that it didn’t matter. Bailey replied that he had felt a combination of all three.
“I think there’s so much nuance to it,” he said, adding: “In a way, I feel innately that I knew myself at quite a young age actually, and the hardware is one of confidence. And then of course, you just take on these stories and these narratives that are sort of like cobwebs. And the closer I got, I found acting. And I think the reason why I loved acting is because for the first time, in a world where you have to sort of code switch and be hypervigilant about what you’re saying and how you come across, especially to your peers, if they’re gonna acknowledge something that you say or the way you say it as denoting of your sexuality. To then get given a script and to actually be able to lean into the right thing to do and to then be truthful in it felt really, really good.”
The actor, whose credits also include Bridgerton and Fellow Travelers, said that as acting became something he was thinking about as a career and not just a hobby, he became more aware of the proverbial glass ceiling.
“I was well aware that [of] the possibilities and the limits of queer actors and what that means to an audience and whether that bleeds into commerce and how that affects it,” he said. “So yeah, I think when I was in my early twenties, there was definitely an understanding that, to be gay would be a hindrance.”
Ultimately, he realized that he needed to be his authentic self and not make any compromises.
“I wasn’t gonna not hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street, and that was something that I felt so strongly in an animal sense,” he said. “And of course if that meant that it was gonna impede any potential work, then I was willing to take that risk.”
Bailey shared that he feels lucky to be living in a time that’s more accepting than was the case when John was becoming an adult at a time when there were no gay role models to look up to.
“I didn’t know what gay was in the 1950s,” John agreed. “Nobody, there was no gay people in my family. There were no examples of it around. I didn’t really have a gay experience till I was 23. And then it all, you know, blossomed. It was like a rocket taken off.”
For Bailey, he looked series like the British show This Life (“I remember being so turned on and so excited”) and The Little Mermaid (“I was obsessed with Prince Eric, which I later understood”).
“And then Brokeback Mountain came out when I was in my sixth form [final two years of secondary school in the U.K.], and I changed my thesis on representation in terms of homosexuality in Brokeback Mountain, just so that I had an excuse to go back to cinema about 15 times,” he said. “But even though the stories itself were painful, it was just enough to see actors performing them, which just shows how bread-crumbed I think we were, at that point.”
He also praised “fearless gay actors” like Ian McKellen “who have been out from the get-go,” his Fellow Travelers star Matt Bomer and others whom he’s learned from. He also expressed a hope for the upcoming generation to be able to not have to hide their sexuality.
“I wonder if the next generation just needs to know how to harness the joy that they can communicate to their fans and in the stories they tell,” he said. “And just know that we’re gonna need it more than ever. Because obviously it’s a striking time where there’s a real threat that things can slip. But it’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? Generational relationships and being in a part of a community where we are all just benefactors of who came before us.”
The Elton John Impact Awards are presented by iHeartRadio and P&G, in partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Brandi Carlile’s Looking Out Foundation. The other honorees are Laverne Cox, Melissa Etheridge, Billie Jean King, Orville Peck and Chappell Roan. Hosted by Billy Porter and Elvis Duran, the special launched as a podcast series June 1 on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere podcasts are heard and as an audio special airing across iHeartRadio PRIDE stations. The special features a performance of John’s “Your Song” by Dove Cameron along with candid, personal conversations with Elton John; John’s husband, David Furnish, who is chair of the Elton John AIDS Foundation; and this year’s honorees.
Leave a Reply