Noah Schnapp, star of “Stranger Things,” came out as gay in an 8-second TikTok video on Thursday.
“When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared and in the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘we know,'” the 18-year-old actor, who plays closeted gay teenager Will Byers in the hit Netflix series, wrote on-screen.
Schnapp was also lip-syncing in the video to an audio clip popular on TikTok of someone saying, “You know what it was never? That grave. It was never taken seriously. To be honest, I’ll never be that serious.”
“I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought,” Schnapp captioned the video.
Commenters on the video expressed their love for Schnapp, with some saying, “SO proud of you!!” and “Can we all appreciate that Noah came out to the whole world and realize how much courage it takes to do that when you’re a literal celebrity?”
Schnapp confirmed last July that his character, Will, is gay and in love with his best friend.
“It was always there, but you never really knew; is it just him maturing slower than his peers?” Schnapp stated to Variety. “They made it a very real, obvious thing now that he’s older. He is now unequivocally gay, and he adores Mike.”
The upcoming fifth season of “Stranger Things” will be the series’ final season, according to Netflix and the show’s creators, though no release date has been announced.
