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10 Famous People Who Recently Came Out

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Ten public figures whose coming-out stories became teaching moments for LGBTQ+ visibility.

Coming out remains one of the most personal decisions a person can make, and for celebrities it happens under a spotlight most people never have to deal with. TheThings Celebrity’s video “10 Famous People Who Recently Came Out” runs through a group of actors, athletes and entertainers who chose to share their sexual orientation publicly, often after years of carefully managing how much of themselves they let the press see. Their stories differ in circumstance, but each one carries the same undercurrent: fear of career fallout, followed by relief once the truth was out.

• Colton Haynes, known for “Teen Wolf” and “Arrow,” confirmed he was gay in a May 2016 Entertainment Weekly interview after months of subtle online hints.
• Wentworth Miller came out in 2013 through an open letter protesting Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
• Ellen Page came out publicly in February 2014 during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s “Time to THRIVE” conference.

Colton Haynes Ends the Speculation

Haynes spent years fielding questions about his personal life without directly answering them, dropping small hints on social media before finally confirming things on the record. In his May 2016 conversation with Entertainment Weekly, he described the exhaustion of dodging the subject and the relief of finally speaking plainly about who he is. Long before he sat down for that interview, he’d already learned how to handle invasive questions the way other stars have learned to shut down disrespectful interviewers without giving reporters the soundbite they were fishing for.

For an actor built on genre-television heartthrob roles in “Teen Wolf” and “Arrow,” the decision carried real professional risk. Haynes went ahead anyway, framing the announcement not as a reveal but as simply catching up with a truth he’d been living privately for years.

Wentworth Miller’s Letter Against Russia’s Anti-Gay Law

Miller, best known for “Prison Break,” took a different route entirely. In 2013, he came out through a public letter declining an invitation to Russia’s St. Petersburg film festival, citing the country’s newly passed law banning “gay propaganda.” His statement doubled as both a personal disclosure and a political protest, turning his coming-out into an act aimed squarely at a specific piece of legislation rather than a general announcement.

Miller’s letter turned a personal disclosure into a direct protest against Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ law, refusing the festival invitation on the spot.

Ellen Page’s THRIVE Conference Speech

Page’s coming-out happened on a stage built for exactly that purpose. Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign’s “Time to THRIVE” conference in February 2014, she told the room she was tired of lying by omission and wanted to be honest, both for herself and for young LGBTQ+ people watching who needed to see someone like them succeed in a mainstream career. The speech spread well beyond the conference room, turning into one of the most widely cited coming-out moments of the decade.

The Common Thread of Career Risk

What ties Haynes, Miller and Page together isn’t the format of their announcements — an interview, a letter, a conference speech — it’s the calculation each of them made beforehand. All three had built careers where audiences knew their faces from teen dramas, prison thrillers and Oscar-nominated indie films, and all three had to weigh whether being honest publicly might cost them future roles. None of it did in any lasting way, and that outcome is part of why these moments get replayed as examples for other public figures still weighing the same decision.

Haynes went straight back to work after his interview ran, and by the fall he was set to return to Star City when “Arrow” kicked off its fifth season in October — no longer treating the subject as something to dodge in press rounds, just an actor back on set for another year of the show that made him famous in the first place.