American Crime actor Connor Jessup comes out as gay in personal essay
Connor Jessup (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for SCAD)
Canadian actor Connor Jessup, who is best known for his roles in American Crime and Falling Skies, has publicly come out as gay in a powerful personal essay.
The 25-year-old actor, writer and director shared the essay alongside a photo of himself on Instagram and opened up about his struggle in coming to terms with his sexuality.
“I knew I was gay when I was thirteen, but I hid it for years,” Jessup wrote.
Connor Jessup has been openly gay in his private life for ‘years’
He continued: “I folded it and sipped it under the rest of my emotional clutter. Not worth the hassle. No one will care anyway. If I can just keep making it smaller, smaller, smaller… My shame took the form of a shrug, but it was shame.
“I’m a white, cis man from an upper-middle class liberal family. Acceptance was never a question. But still, suspended in all this privilege, I balked. It took me years. It’s ongoing. I’m saying this now because I have conspicuously not said it before. I’ve been out for years in my private life, but never quite publicly. I’ve played that tedious game.”
“I’m saying this now because I have conspicuously not said it before. I’ve been out for years in my private life, but never quite publicly.”
– Connor Jessup
In the post, Jessup confessed to talking about gay characters he had played from “a neutral, almost anthropological distance,” and said his evasions on the topic were “bizarre and embarrassing.”
‘I’m grateful to be gay’
Elsewhere in the post, Jessup wrote that he does not want to censor himself.
Connor Jessup, who came out as gay in an Instagram post (Theo Wargo/Getty)
“I don’t want to be complicit, even peripherally, in the idea that being gay is a problem to be solved or hushed. I’m grateful to be gay. Queerness is a solution, It’s a promise against cliché and solipsism and blandness; it’s a tilted head and an open window.”
He finished the post by writing: “To all the queers, deviants, misfits, and lovers in my life: I love you. I love you. Happy Pride!”
In addition to his television roles, Jessup made a name for himself in the 2012 film Blackbird and gay-themed film Closet Monster in 2015.
His coming-out Instagram post has been met with love and respect online. One Twitter user shared it and wrote: “In one of the most beautifully eloquent posts I can ever recall reading, the actor and director @connorjessup came out today.”
