In a new interview with Out,
actor Matt Bomer talks about coming out to his conservative parents.
Bomer (White Collar, American Horror
Story), 39, is raising three children with his husband, Hollywood
publicist Simon Halls.
Bomer, who grew up in a suburb of
Houston, said that he views his life as divided between the time
before he told his parents, and the time after.
While performing at the Utah
Shakespeare Festival, Bomer came out to his parents in a letter.
“I would have lost my sense of
direction if I tried to do it in person,” Bomer
said, adding that there was “radio silence for … at least six
months” from his parents.
“And then I came home and we had the
blowup that I'd always feared. But we got that out of the way, and
we got down to the business of figuring out how to love each other.”
Bomer said that he “struggled” with
his family for years, ignoring the advice of many people who told him
to cut them out of his life.
“It was a struggle. It's a struggle
for anybody to take their paradigms and set of beliefs and
understandings and completely flip the script. So I'm empathetic
toward everyone,” he said.
“I'm here to tell people it can get
better,” Bomer added.