Ellen Page opened up about her decision to come out as gay on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Thursday, and revealed she felt “a tremendous amount of shame and guilt” while keeping her sexuality secret from the public.
“It’s toxic. You think you’re at a place where you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m happy to be gay, I’m so comfortable being gay, I love being gay,’” Page said in the interview (above). “Honestly, it wasn’t until making that choice and doing that when I realized that, no, I was carrying a tremendous amount of shame and guilt for not being out, and felt isolated from the LGBT community.”
Also read: WWE’s Stone Cold Steve Austin Slams ‘Motherf–kers’ Who Don’t Agree With Gay Marriage (Audio)
DeGeneres, who congratulated Page for coming out, was a sitcom star when she ignited controversy in 1997 after coming out publicly on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and then in a subsequent episode of her ABC comedy, “Ellen.”
See photos: Gay Hollywood: 13 Out & Proud Celebrities Before Ellen Page
Page said she has never been happier “in every aspect” of life since giving her Valentine’s Day speech to the Human Rights Campaign this year, and was grateful to DeGeneres for leading the charge at a time when the world wasn’t necessarily ready to accept the LGBT community.
See video: Fox News Host Awkwardly Backtracks After Calling George Clooney Gay
“I think my biggest fear in doing it was having a panic attack, quite frankly. But I was just so ready to do it, and so excited to do it,” Page said. “So it was a combination of such thrill to be at a place in my life where I was able to do that, and grateful to have that moment, and grateful to you, because you did it at a time when it was much harder and much scarier.”