“So I was scared. Just scared,” he said.
He didn’t want to lie, nor did he want to become anyone’s headline.
Lawyers, managers, and executives debated how to “handle” him. But he refused to play along. The cast of Dr. Quinn was supportive, and he stayed on the family-friendly show, but once the series wrapped up, “it was tough.”
“My dad couldn’t look me in the eye. And that hurt. Because a boy always wants his dad’s acceptance. And I knew I’d been lying to them”, the actor shared.
His mother, unsure how to react, began to cry and said she had always assumed he was too cute not to have a girlfriend.
The fallout was painful, but something unexpected happened. Letters started pouring in from young gay men across the country, thanking him for being visible.
For the first time, he wrote back, by hand.
”It helped me, actually, all this pressure I was getting to identify myself, identify myself. It just meant so much to know I wasn’t going through it alone either. After all, what is it [loving men]? There’s so much attached to it, but at the end of the day, it’s love. I’ll take it. Whatever it looks like,” he explained.
Unfortunately, the gay revelation had harsh consequences for the actor, who was in the middle of his career.
From actor to psychologist
After decades of fame, addiction, and personal battles, he finally stepped away from Hollywood in 2015. Not in defeat, but in transformation.
He went back to school, earned a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and opened his own private practice.
Today, he helps others navigate trauma, identity, and healing, the very struggles he once faced himself.
He named his practice Confluence Psychotherapy, a symbol, he says, of twContinue reading…
