Noah Schnapp, the star of ‘Stranger Things,’ has come out as gay

Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers, a closeted gay adolescent on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” has come out as gay.

“When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years, and all they said was ‘we know’.“ the 18-year-old actor stated in a video posted to his TikTok account on Thursday.

Over Schnapp lip-syncing to a TikTok audio clip of someone stating, “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, will never be that serious,”   says “Variety”.

Schnapp captioned his TikTok video, “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.”

In July, following the premiere of the last two episodes of “Stranger Things'” fourth season, Schnapp revealed to “Variety” for the first time that Will Byers is gay and in love with his closest buddy, Mike.

“It was always kind of there, but you never really knew. Is it just him growing up slower than his friends?” Schnapp said.

“Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing. Now it’s 100 percent clear that he is gay, and he does love Mike.”

In July, following the premiere of the last two episodes of “Stranger Things'” fourth season, Schnapp revealed to “Variety” for the first time that Will Byers is gay and in love with his closest buddy, Mike.

Will’s sexuality has been a source of contention from the first episode of “Stranger Things,” but Schnapp had always evaded queries regarding the character’s orientation, stating that the character was still “up to the audience’s participation.”

Schnapp told “Variety” in July that he wasn’t sure what “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer had in mind for Will, and that if he knew, he didn’t want to ruin how the show revealed the character’s journey in Season 4.

“I think it is done so beautifully because it’s so easy to make a character just like all of a sudden be gay,” Schnapp says.

“People have come up to me – I was just in Paris, and this, like, 40-year-old man came up to me, and he was like, ‘Wow, this Will character made me feel so good’. And I related to it so much.

“That is exactly who I was when I was a kid – That just made me so happy to hear. They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle, and they’re doing it so well.”

When “Variety” asked Schnapp how he dealt with the emphasis on Will’s sexuality while still finding himself out, the actor cited all of the trials the character had endured throughout the series.

“I think it’s all just part of the challenge of acting,” he said. “This isn’t just a single layer thing of he’s struggling with coming out.

“It’s this multifaceted trauma that goes years back, because he was taken by the Demogorgon and then his friends. They never acknowledged him, and now he’s scared to come out and doesn’t know if they’ll accept him.”

Season 5 of “Stranger Things” has been confirmed by Netflix and the Duffer Brothers, but there is no word on when production will begin, let alone when it will premiere.

Main Image: Noah Schnapp/ Evan Agostini | Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

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