Chris Colfer Opens Up About the Dark Side of Fame as “the Gay Kid on Glee”

Chris Colfer, the 35-year-old actor and writer, recently shared how sudden fame changed his life when he starred on Glee. The Fox musical series premiered in 2009 and brought him worldwide attention for his role as Kurt Hummel, an openly gay teenager.

In an interview on the Syndicate X Library YouTube series Books That Changed My Life, Colfer reflected on the challenges of being a young gay actor in the early 2000s.

“I loved pretending… I loved creating other people, creating characters. I loved storytelling. I never in a million years thought that fame would have any part of my career at all… It got really scary really fast,” he said.

He recalled how playing a gay teen drew negative attention at a time when many people weren’t accepting. “And I was playing an openly gay teenager at a time when people did not like seeing openly gay teenagers on television… It was not welcome. And the death threats and the security risks started almost immediately. I became very agoraphobic,” Colfer shared.

Colfer also discussed how public figures and media reacted. “Late night talk show hosts would take cracks at me, and it was perfectly fine because I was the gay kid. Politicians would say things about me publicly, perfectly fine because I was the gay kid. Pastors of mega churches would call me the anti-Christ, and it was perfectly accepted, because I was the gay kid. There was no one defending me. There was no one coming to my rescue,” he said.

He remembered how people around him would normalize the harassment. “When I would talk about it with people, they’d say, ‘Well, what do you expect? You’re the gay kid on Glee. This is just what’s going to happen,’” Colfer said.

Chris Colfer’s reflections highlight the difficult reality of being a young actor breaking barriers at a time when representation was far less accepted.

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