This week, Netflix released The Boys In The Band, a Ryan Murphy-directed adaptation of an iconic and beloved play about a group of queer men in the 1960s coming together to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Featuring a triple-A all-queer cast—Jim Parsons, Andrew Rannels, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington, Robin de Jesús, Tuc Watkins and Charlie Carver—it looks like a sassy, unapologetically gay drama all shot in one room, about gay men played by gay men. What fun!
And, when asked about his relationship with the film, Teen Wolf star Charlie Carver reflected on his own experience and a harrowing moment that convinced him to publicly come out as gay.
Five years ago, Carver, who also recently appeared in Netflix’s Ratched, was at an Emmy party when a gay colleague chastised him on three separate occasions for acting too effeminate.
“I was told that I needed to ‘get it under control’ around people in the business,” Cover told Variety, admitting that this occurred while he was in the closet. Later, when Carver was waiting at the valet (this is Hollywood after all), he bumped into his co-worker again and asked him to clarify his earlier comments.
Instead, the man apparently slapped Carver right across the face. “It wasn’t playful but intentional, pointed and meant to be instructive. A slap,” the actor recalled. “I told him that if he ever touched me again, I would name him.”
“That was the moment when I said to myself, ‘I can’t do this. I cannot police myself in that way,’” he continued. A few months later, in January 2016, he came out publicly via Instagram.
During his acceptance speech for the 2020 GLSEN Gamechanger Award back in May, Carver added, “I recognise now that that thing I was so afraid of, the thing I was sort of running from and trying to manage, was my own shame.”
You can catch Charlie Carver on Ratched and The Boys In The Band on Netflix. And, you can catch his Teen Wolf co-star Tyler Posey serenading you with his guitar in the nude on his Only Fans.
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