Jason Ritter Quotes

My mother and father could not handle even me being gay. We never talked about it, really.

I have a coming-out story that's probably very similar to lots of people who are my age: the fear of being rejected, the fear of losing your family and friends. You know, I worked through all of that, and that fear, and what that does to you, is pretty profound.

Being gay and coming up in New Orleans was not easy. At first I was very terrified and very timid.

I had a lot of fear about coming out as a kid.

The truth is, I probably would be dead if I had become a star, because at that point I was so closeted and so afraid of people of finding out I was gay. There was no telling what would have happened.

And I've known people who came out with a sense of torture.

One of my best friends since I was eleven years old is a gay man, and I knew his struggle. It was a tough life, you not accepting yourself.

Once we got signed, I moved out of my house because I was having teenage issues with my mom. It really wasn't my fault, looking back. You know, I'm gay; it's weird. It was one of the things. She has no problem with me being gay, but she had a problem with me dressing the way I do at first.

My mom died before she knew I was gay, and my dad thought it was a phase, then realized it wasn't.

I've always been comfortable with my gayness, but I was intimidated by the social anxiety.

When I first came out, holidays were hard. I reached a point where I didn't go home anymore. I constructed my own, kind of like, family group around Christmas.

Competitors, even friends that would say things that were so homophobic, and - I don't think that they realized necessarily the impact that it was having on me, because I was in the closet, and I think that that's what made me really scared to come out.

I'm the person I am because of all the support we have but inside there is still a scared, gay kid, worried he's going to get bullied and people aren't going to like what I do.

Honestly, there was a time after I came out that I really did not think I would be working again.

I think it's always good for gay people to come out, but it's also understandable why people might choose not to do so.

My dad was a very conservative Republican businessman, so obviously I considered it a problem when I realized I was a lesbian.

I had a hell of a time convincing people I was gay - which was so annoying!

The most important thing for me was to never, ever, ever deny it. But I didn't really have the courage to talk about it. I was thinking, The people who need to know I'm gay know.

I don't think closeted homosexual morticians have the market cornered on self-loathing or sense of shame.

I'm the only gay person my parents know.

My mother thought me being gay was a death sentence.

Coming out was painful, but life got so much better for me.

How can my son not be straight after all I've said and done for him?

I have a friend who is around my age, a little younger, and she's gay and came out to her own community when she was younger but not to her family and to the community at large.

In the past, it weighed on me because nobody in my family is gay. I had no role models so I had to find my own way.