Actor Sean Maher Comes Out

Sean Maher, an actor from Firefly, and now on the new NBC drama The Playboy Club, where he plays a closeted gay man, has come out publicly as a gay man:

“I’ve never discussed it publicly...I’ve never been asked about it publicly, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t paint a different picture...It was so exhausting, and I was so miserable. I didn’t really have any life other than work and this façade I was putting on. So I kept my friends from college [where he was out] separate from my work friends, and that was very confusing. I just kept going on and on painting this picture of somebody I wasn’t. I didn’t have time for a personal relationship anyway. And you just don’t realize that it’s eating away at your soul.”

It all sounds so easy, right, but Sean also tells how he was asked to keep his personal life private, by folks who didn't know he was gay, and folks who did:

"I’m 22, I move to L.A., and it’s such a cliché, but the day I arrive, publicists from the show took me out to The Ivy for lunch...They’re telling me, ‘You know, gosh, we’d really appreciate it if you could keep your girlfriend on the side because we want to appeal to the female demographic of the show.’ ...At that moment, I didn’t think to say, ‘Oh, I’m gay,’ because right before I left New York [where he went to college at NYU], I had my manager tell me: ‘You need to get a girl on your arm or people will start talking.’ I remember telling him: ‘I’m gay.’ He had no idea. And he said: ‘All the more reason to get a girl on your arm.’ My agent was also like, ‘It’s best if you keep your options open. Maybe bisexual?’”

Welcome out Sean

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via Towleroad