Jane Velez-Mitchell Quotes

I spent 24 years in the closet wanting to talk so desperately about who I was and what I am but too afraid to.

It's a terrible way to live, to be closeted, to always be worried about being found out. To live this double life is really trying.

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

When you're in the closet, you feel like the sky will fall down if anyone finds out. A lot of the fear is self-generated.

I was terrified about people knowing I was gay. I'd cringe inside at the idea that they'd be talking behind my back.

Gay men can sometimes feel ashamed or chastised when the messaging is 'Be out and proud!' or 'Just come out.' It's not that easy. It certainly wasn't for me.

I'd always been a little bit uncomfortable talking about my sexuality just because it took me a while to fully accept it. I had a bit of traumatic time with my friends when I was younger, and it kind of just put me off talking about it.

As someone who was once in the closet, I can tell you it is the most sad, dark, awful, depressing place to ever be.

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 really brought that with me: that people think gay people are disgusting... I remember thinking, 'Okay, I might be gay. But I won't tell anybody. Nobody will ever know.'

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

When I was 16, I knew I was gay. I loved a lot. But I lived as a straight guy, because there are people in my town who don't understand my story. I never told. I never wanted to show what was inside my heart.

What's it like to figure out you're gay and then begin the process of coming out? Well, for most of my life, I felt doomed. I could imagine no path that would allow me to realize my authentic self. I felt the need to lie, even to myself, insisting: I am straight.

I'm a lesbian. Yup. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I remember being in college, and I had fallen in love with this woman, and I remember sitting in my dorm room saying out loud to myself, like, 'You have enough problems. You are not gonna let this happen.' You just kinda, like, stuff it away until - well, some people stuff it away forever.

I was never honest. My father died, and I had never said to him, 'I'm gay.' I knew what I was, but I had to pretend not to be that to avoid the beatings.

I never felt like there was an unconscious part of me around that woke up or that came out of the closet; there wasn't a struggle, there wasn't an attempt to suppress.

Before I came out, the thought of someone calling me gay, even when I knew very well that I was, was petrifying.

I didn't have a coming out moment.

For some reason, I was deeply ashamed of the theater early on. I think it had to do with this growing sense I was gay, although I couldn't have put a word to it back then.

For some strange reason, my gay life didn't get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.

Being gay facilitated my capacity for shame. As a child, I carried around this thing that gradually became this big dark secret. When I came out in a newspaper interview at 30 I was expecting the reaction the following day to be like the climax of 'Dead Poets Society,' but actually no one really cared.

I've been bisexual for as long as I can remember. I remember being made fun of in junior high for that. It was something that was shameful, and it really shouldn't be.

Before I came out, I had a lot of anger. For years people would ask, 'How are you doing?' and I'd say, 'Good, fine.' It's show business, and that's what you have to show.

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.

I'm a lesbian. Yup. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I remember being in college, and I had fallen in love with this woman, and I remember sitting in my dorm room saying out loud to myself, like, 'You have enough problems. You are not gonna let this happen.'