YouTuber Ricky Dillon comes out as gay in heartfelt video: ‘I finally feel like myself’
Ricky Dillon came out as gay in a YouTube video.
YouTuber Ricky Dillon has come out as gay in an powerful video in which he revealed he was “terrified” to open up about his sexuality.
“I am gay,” Dillon said in the video. “I’m gay. I’ve barely said this out loud, so I’m saying it several times to normalise it to myself. I am gay. And I am finally OK with it. It’s been a long journey to get here.”
In the video – which was simply titled “I’m Gay” – Dillon said he started to come to terms with his sexuality between 2017 and 2018. However, he did not come out sooner because he came from a religious family and feared that they would not accept him.
YouTuber Ricky Dillon was afraid to come out as gay to his religious family.
“I grew up in a family, in an environment… where being gay is so wrong,” he said.
“I grew up Christian, very religious – I grew up in Alabama – and I was taught that being gay is a horrible sin, it’s so bad, it’s the worst thing you could be. It was drilled into my brain from an early age that being gay is one of the worst things that can happen,” Ricky Dillon added.
“It was ingrained in my mind that being gay is a sin, it’s wrong, so therefore I can’t be gay. There’s no way that I’m gay because I’m a Christian, it’s wrong – there’s just no way I can be gay.”
It all makes sense and it feels right, and I finally feel like myself.
Dillon said he had not yet told his family he was gay at the time of recording the video, but said he would be telling them before he uploaded it to YouTube.
“I love my family very much. I love them so much. This is all really hard.
“Telling my family is going to be by far the hardest thing I’m ever going to do in my life, or have done so far.”
Dillon said he was coming out publicly because he had started to feel “inauthentic” and “disingenuous” on YouTube after realising he was gay. He said he had been playing a “role” on YouTube, but said he has not been that person in a long time.
The YouTuber previously came out as asexual.
He also addressed a video he posted several years ago in which he said he was asexual.
“I came to the conclusion that I must be either asexual or aromantic or both, because I’m definitely not gay, there’s no way I’m gay, and I don’t like girls, so I was left with that,” he said.
While Dillon has since realised he is gay, he said he did not want other people who are asexual to feel that their identities have been invalidated by his coming out.
Furthermore, Dillon revealed that he has “been with several guys” and said: “It’s the most natural and comfortable thing ever. It just clicks. It all makes sense and it feels right, and I finally feel like myself.”
He added: “Somehow, for 25 years of my life, my mind blocked off any thoughts that I could be gay. I don’t understand it. I don’t know how I didn’t know. I just somehow convinced myself that I wasn’t gay. I really did not think I was until about three years ago.”
