Actor Charlie Carver, known for roles in MTV's "Teen Wolf" and on "Desperate Housewives," came out as gay in a series of moving Instagram posts on Monday evening.
Carver, who now stars in HBO's "The Leftovers" with his twin brother Max, wrote of his years-long struggle to separate his personal life from his burgeoning professional one.
"I feared I would be limiting myself to a type, to a perception with limits that I was not professionally comfortable with," Carver said. "And I created in my imagination an Industry that was just as rigid in this belief as well.
"After having the privilege of playing a range of characters, gay, straight and otherwise, I realize this is not the case."
The actor said he's known he was gay since the age of 12, and said he's grown up "in a family where [his] orientation was celebrated." His brother tweeted out his support shortly after the post went up, but Carver said he "wanted to believe in a world where one’s sexuality was for the most part irrelevant."
"I now believe that by omitting this part of myself from the record, I am complicit in perpetuating the suffering, fear, and shame cast upon so many in the world," he said. "So now, let the record show this -- I self-identify as gay ... I owe it to myself, more than anything, to be who I needed when I was younger."
You can read the entire post on his Instagram page, beginning here.
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