Jonathan Bailey has opened up about the early fears he had around being openly gay in the entertainment industry, saying he once believed it could be a “hindrance” to his career.
Speaking on 1 June at the inaugural Elton John Impact Awards, which honours LGBTQ+ community members and allies, Bailey reflected on the realities faced by queer actors and the expectations placed on them.
“I was well aware that [of] the possibilities and the limits of queer actors and what that means to an audience and whether that bleeds into commerce and how that affects it,” he said.
“So yeah, I think when I was in my early twenties, there was definitely an understanding that, to be gay would be a hindrance.”
Bailey, known for his roles in Fellow Travelers, Bridgerton and Wicked, was among those honoured at the event, alongside Laverne Cox, Melissa Etheridge, Billie Jean King, Orville Peck and Chappell Roan.
Elton John also asked Bailey whether he had ever felt pressured to hide his sexuality, whether he had been scared to come out, or whether he felt it simply did not matter.
“I wasn’t gonna not hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street”
“I think there’s so much nuance to it,” Bailey replied, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“In a way, I feel innately that I knew myself at quite a young age, actually, and the hardware is one of confidence. And then of course, you just take on these stories and these narratives that are sort of like cobwebs. And the closer I got, I found acting.”
Bailey said acting became meaningful because it gave him space to be truthful after growing up in a world where he felt he had to monitor himself.
“I think the reason why I loved acting is because for the first time, in a world where you have to sort of code switch and be hypervigilant about what you’re saying and how you come across, especially to your peers, if they’re gonna acknowledge something that you say or the way you say it as denoting of your sexuality.
“To then get given a script and to actually be able to lean into the right thing to do and to then be truthful in it felt really, really good.”
The actor said he was ultimately not prepared to make compromises around who he was, even if that carried professional risk.
“I wasn’t gonna not hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street, and that was something that I felt so strongly in an animal sense,” he said.
“And of course if that meant that it was gonna impede any potential work, then I was willing to take that risk.”
Bailey’s comments highlight the pressure many queer actors have faced to weigh authenticity against career opportunity, particularly in an industry where LGBTQ+ performers have historically been told that openness could limit their roles or marketability.
For Bailey, however, the decision was clear: being truthful about who he is mattered more than trying to fit an industry’s narrow expectations.
