Walking Dead actor comes out as gay in emotional reveal
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The Walking Dead actor Daniel Newman has come out as gay, saying it was “just time.”
In an emotional YouTube video (below), he said a chance meeting with a girl at a homeless youth centre he was volunteering at had changed his mind about hiding his sexuality.
The actor, who has also starred in Vampire Diaries, Homeland and Sex and the City, said the girl had thanked him profusely for helping the LGBT community.
After he had questioned why she was thanking him, she said: “Because you’re straight.”
“I’m not straight,” the actor, who plays Daniel in the show, had responded, and the girl’s answer floored him.
“Why have you never said that publicly before? You could help change our lives.”
“It hit me like a gut-punch,” Newman said. “It felt like someone knocked the wind out from me.
“And I realised how important it is in this day and age to be visible – to let people who know you are.”
He added that there was no excuse to hide your sexuality when, as the girl pointed out, revealing it could help so many people.
In the video posted later in this article, he said: “When you’re accomplishing incredible things and you’re hiding who you are, you are hurting hundreds of millions of people.”
The news came less than two weeks after Jesus, one of the main characters on the show, also came out as gay.
Paul Rovia, played by Tom Payne and better known to the post-apocalyptic band of survivors as Jesus, joined the series last season.
But he only made his sexuality clear earlier this month.
Jesus is gay in the original comic book series, which had led fans to question his sexuality ever since the character was written into the programme a year ago.
The Emmy Award-winning show, which is now in its seventh season, has featured six LGBT characters throughout its run.
Last year, Walking Dead star Norman Reedus said that fans of the show “get mad” at him for weighing in on his character’s romantic life.
Fans of the zombie drama – which routinely features graphic violence and gore – last year were up in arms after the show included a gay kiss.
See Daniel’s coming out video here: