October 17, 2011 | Celeb Watch

Star comes out after young teen's suicide

Although many gossip columnists have said Zachary Quinto, who played Sylar on NBC’s Heroes, was gay, the actor never responded publicly to the rumors. That changed after Quinto heard about a young man's suicide last month.

"When i found out that Jamey Rodemeyer killed himself — I felt deeply troubled. But when I found out that Jamey Rodemeyer had made an 'it gets better' video only months before taking his own life — I felt indescribable despair," he wrote on his website. "In light of Jamey's death — it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it — is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality."

He posted about this note shortly after word got out about his interview with New York magazine in which he admitted, for the first time publicly, to being gay. 

“[T]here's such tremendous disparity right now. It's like, you have the legalization of gay marriage in the state of New York and three months later you have Jamey Rodemeyer killing himself, yet another gay teenager bullied into taking his own life,” he said in the interview, after being asked about the continuing struggles of the LGBT community.

"And, you know, again, as a gay man, I look at that and say there's a hopelessness that surrounds it. But as a human being, I look at it and say, ‘Why? Where is this disparity coming from and why can't we as a culture, as a society, dig deeper to examine it?”

Quinto played a homosexual in Tori Spelling's TV show So NoTORIous and on the new FX series American Horror Story. And now he gets to be openly gay in real life.

Zachary Quinto identifies himself 'as a gay man' [LA Times]

What’s Up, Spock? [NY Mag]

nyc ... [Zachary Quinto official website]