Elliot Page describes terrifying encounter with ‘big dude’ who threatened to kill him
Elliot Page. (Getty/David Livingston)
Elliot Page has opened up about an appalling encounter with a “big dude” who shouted vile slurs and threatened to kill him.
Elliot Page said he was crossing the road at Los Angeles’ iconic Sunset Boulevard when a “big dude” started screaming at him.
“This really big dude, less than an arm’s length away, was just screaming at me, ‘You f****t! Don’t look at me! You f****t, f****t!’,” Page wrote for Esquire.
“I couldn’t even just go, like, I’m not looking at you. It was the one time I’d left the hotel that whole day.”
Page decided “in my brain” not to do anything physically because the aggressor “was so tall that I couldn’t do anything physically”.
He was also concerned that turning around “could trigger something else” so decided to just stand “completely still” while “staring straight ahead”.
“And then eventually, after him yelling, ‘F****t! F****t! F****t!’ some more, he started to walk off and I started to cross the street,” Page said. “And then he just started screaming, behind me, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you fucking f****t! I’m gonna kill you, you fucking f****t! I’m gonna gay-bash you!’”
Page added: “So I ran — I was alone — I ran into a convenience store, and as I was opening the door he yelled, ‘This is why I need a gun!’
“Yeah, I don’t think people really get it.”
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Elliot Page instantly became one of the most high-profile trans people in the world when they came out December 2020.
Since then, they’ve talked openly about the joy of living as their authentic self, discussed their gender identity journey and advocated for the trans community who’ve been systematically targeted by anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
He has also spoken openly about the profound effects that living in the wrong gender had on his life and mental health.
Page told Oprah Winfrey in April 2021 that wearing feminine clothing had become “detrimental” to their mental health when they embarked on a press tour for Inception, and “collapsed” at an after party as a result.
They revealed in the Esquire feature there were times when they were told that “you need to wear a dress” at “very, very, very pivotal moments” in their career. Page said one such moment happened at the Juno premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
He recalled how he wanted to wear a suit to the event, but he said “Fox Searchlight was basically like: ‘No, you need to wear a dress’.”
“They had me wear a dress, and . . . that was that. And then all the Juno press, all the photo shoots — Michael Cera was in slacks and sneakers,” Page wrote. “I look back at the photos, and I’m like . . .?”
They said some people might “roll their eyes” at the situation, but that for them it was “really extremely, extremely f****d up”. Elliot Page said it “doesn’t matter if I’m trans or cis” as “lots of cis women dress how I dress”.
