Jonathan Bailey admits he thought being gay would be ‘hindrance to career’
Jonathan Bailey (Getty Images)
Jonathan Bailey has shared that he originally thought being gay would be a “hindrance” to his career, but he was “willing to take that risk” to be his authentic self.
Speaking on 1 June at the inaugural Elton John Impact Awards, which honours LGBTQ+ community members and allies, he said: “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 continued: “So yeah, I think when I was in my early twenties, there was definitely an understanding that, to be gay would be a hindrance.”
Bailey, who starred in Fellow Travelers, Bridgerton and Wicked, was honoured at the awards along with the likes of Laverne Cox, Melissa Etheridge, Billie Jean King, Orville Peck and Chappell Roan.
Elton John also asked Bailey if he ever felt pressured to hide the fact that he was gay, if he was scared to come out, or if he felt it didn’t matter.
‘I wasn’t gonna not hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street’
“I think there’s so much nuance to it,” he replied, as per The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”
He continued: “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.”
Bailey went on to say that he wasn’t prepared to make any compromises, and so went into acting as his most authentic self.
“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.”
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