Actress Ellen Page comes out as gay
Posted February 15, 2014 6:48 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Oscar-nominated Canadian actress Ellen Page has come out as gay, declaring that hiding her sexuality has caused her years of suffering.
Page went public Friday night in Las Vegas during an emotional speech at the Time to Thrive conference — an LGBT (lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual) youth event sponsored by the gay advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.
The 26-year-old Halifax native said she was “tired of lying by omission,” and that her fear of coming out had caused her spirit, her mental health and her relationships to suffer.
The audience stood and applauded when she told the conference, “I’m here today because I’m gay, and maybe I can make a difference to help others have an easier and more hopeful time.”
Page said she felt she’d been put in a difficult position by a film industry that places “crushing standards” on actors.
“Standards of beauty, of a good life, of success — standards, that I hate to admit, affected me,” she said.
The star of such hit movies as Juno, Inception and X-Men said that all people, regardless of their sexuality, “Deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame and without compromise.”
Page won the hearts of moviegoers, and also an Oscar nomination, playing a pregnant teenager in Juno.
