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Today marks the start of a new chapter for YouTuber Ricky Dillon.
From this point on, Ricky Dillon says he’s being honest with himself about his sexuality after struggling for years to come to terms with who he is. In a new YouTube video, the entertainer reveals he’s accepted he’s “1000 percent gay”, something that he’s “terrified” to admit, namely because of the religious household he was raised in. “It was drilled into my brain from an early age that being gay is one of the worst things that could happen.” Ricky explains, “I am so terrified [my family’s] not going to accept me for being gay, because I know their beliefs.”
Not to say, Ricky doesn’t love his parents, nor does he wish to paint them in a bad light. He insists they’re “great parents” and he had a “great childhood,” but the “fact of the matter is I’m gay and it’s something they don’t believe in.’
“I wanted to come out years ago. I’m not scared of telling you guys,” Dillon shares.
The reason why he’s choosing to publicly come out now is because he “can’t move forward” in his career or personal life if he isn’t honest about this. Being closeted, Ricky says, has made him feel “disingenuous and inauthentic” in almost every way possible, as if he was “playing this role of YouTuber Ricky Dillon.”
He adds that he hasn’t been the guy people love and admire for a “long time.” This, Ricky explains, is why he’s “barely” uploaded any videos to his channel in recent years.
Even when Ricky did post videos, he didn’t reveal the “crippling anxiety” he was feeling as he came to terms with being gay. The 27-year-old states, “There’s still so much of the world that is very homophobic and hateful and thinks that being gay is a lifestyle or something you choose. I did not choose to be depressed and have crippling anxiety over this for three years. Do I think I’d want to choose to have a lifestyle that makes me in the worst state of mind I could possibly be in?”
He adds, “I tried so hard to be straight.” According to the star, he had 12 girlfriends throughout his life, all of which were “great,” but “could not have been more wrong and awkward.”
During those times when he tried to be in a relationship, Ricky says he found himself questioning, “What is wrong with me? I don’t have any attraction to girls.”
“It led me to thinking that I might be asexual, which yes, I did make a video—four years ago now I think—where I talked about my sexuality and how I think that I’m asexual, because my mind had somehow convinced myself that being gay is off the table and there’s no way I could be gay,” the YouTuber explains of the video and his later video in which he stated him being asexual is a lie.
Now, however, the star reveals he knows he’s gay and he’s “never been so sure of anything” in his life. “I’ve been with several guys now and 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 I’m myself.”
In retrospect, the 27-year-old thinks he “ignored” all the “enormous signs” that were right before him. Like, how he used to tell himself that he was looking up pictures of a “shirtless” Chris Evans because “he was a great specimen of a human, so I want to look like that.” He’s now accepted that he wasn’t just looking at Chris Evans for motivation, but something more.
As for his parents, he doesn’t think they suspect he’s gay, especially since his mother made homophobic remarks to him at Christmastime, which “reinforced” his fear they won’t accept him. He assured viewers he’d tell his family before he uploaded the video, but he hasn’t shared how they reacted yet.
Regardless, Ricky is telling his story in the hopes it “can help so many people out there.”