Phil Lester is coming out as gay.
In a video published on Sunday, the YouTube star — also known as AmazingPhil — revealed the news in a clip titled, “Coming Out To You.”
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The British funny man said to his 4.2 million subscribers:
“There is something quite big I’ve been meaning to tell you guys. I’m gay, and depending on who you are, you might’ve known, or it could’ve been a surprise… surprise! That’s how I should’ve come out to my parents. Even if you don’t totally relate to my story, you might learn something or change your view, or just feel like you’re not alone with something you went through. I’m gay! It’s great! I’m happy! And hopefully you’re happy for me too. If not, I hope you have a think about why you want a fellow human to be unhappy. And not true to who they are. And if that is a healthy mindset to have.”
The social media personality said he knew about his sexuality around the age of 12 after he saw a hot, shirtless guy at the beach.
“So I’ve known I was gay since I was about 12ish… I think I first noticed… when I was on a beach and I saw a beautiful, hot shirtless guy walking past with his stunning girlfriend. And I think most of my guy friends would have been like, ‘Wow, I wanna be him.’ Well I was like ‘Wow, I wanna kiss him. Wait.'”
He added:
“I’d missed out on a lot of life experiences and I had all this guilt and shame about my big secret, and that made me really anxious and stressed but it’s crazy because there’s nothing wrong with being gay yet you still feel really guilty about this secret that you’re keeping… I still didn’t tell [any of my friends] though, despite being friends for years and them all being super nice people because I just felt like it was just a big deal and I didn’t know what to tell them or when or how so I just kind of left it.”
Though he pretended to be interested in females as a teenager, things began to change when he entered college. At university, he started coming out to his new friends.
Unfortunately, a guy from his hometown stumbled upon his profile on a dating website, and outed him when he was 18.
“Until one fateful day when one of my Northern friends found me on the dating site and then they texted a screenshot of my profile to all of my friends back home. It wasn’t malicious, they didn’t think it through, they thought it’d be something fun or scandalous, but obviously for me it was a huge deal. It totally out-ed me before I as ready and it made me so scared to go home and see these people.”
Even though he officially came out in this video, Lester believes gay people have to continually “come out” to every new person in their lives.
“It’s funny, you never stop coming out to people because it’s not like you do it once and then everybody knows. Every time I make a connection with somebody new, I’ll have to come out at some point. I mean, it’s not always relevant but sometimes you’ve got to slide it into conversation.”
Despite this, he is optimistic about the future, and believes society is “becoming more accepting” of those in the LGBT community.
“The world is gradually becoming a better place, and with that, people are gradually becoming more accepting… So people might react badly at first, but that’s because we’re all victims of this cultural brainwashing that puts these feelings [that being gay is bad] in our heads.”
Last month, Lester’s comedy partner — Dan Howell — also came out as gay in a YouTube video.
WATCH Phil’s full announcement (below):
[Image via AmazingPhil/YouTube.]
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