Christian Wilkins shares how he came out to his dad
Christian Wilkins has shared the touching story of how he came out to his father, entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins.
Speaking on Phoebe Burgess’ Vogue podcast Under the Gloss, the 27-year-old model said he never felt pressured to come out “officially” as gay, explaining that both his parents encouraged him to “lean in” to his identity from an early age.
When Phoebe asked about his coming out story, Christian joked that his parents knew all along.
“Well, now that I look back at it, refusing to go to bed at the age of five until I did a lip sync performance of On a Night Like This by Kylie Minogue probably meant that they were somewhat aware,” he began with laugh.
“But I just think there wasn’t this expectation that I was straight, and that I needed to say these words. It was a ‘we’re people and you can explore whatever you wanted and it doesn’t mean anything’. Or (they’d say) ‘It’s not as weighted as it used to be.’”
While Christian was always comfortable in his own skin without feeling the need to label himself, a friend of his father's told him if he said the words out loud.
“I remember one of my dad’s friends one day kind of said to me, ‘Oh, your dad would actually quite like you to say it.’ And I was really angry hearing that. And one of my girlfriends was there and she was she had a go at the person, she was like, ‘Why should he have to do that? It’s not about Richard,'" he said.
“The next Monday, I went into Dad’s office and I was almost about to cry. And I was like, ‘I just heard that you want me to say something? And I think it’s unfair that you do.’"
He turned to me and he was like, ‘Darling, if what you’re saying is what I think you’re saying, if you feel the need to say something, say it, but you don’t need to say anything for me.’ And I think that that was so amazing to kind of hear because it never felt like something I wanted or needed to say. And I loved that.”
When asked who the nosy friend of Richard's was, Christian refused to disclose the details, saying it's someone people would know.
Image credits: Getty Images