Coming out as LGBTQ+ can be delicate business--there's a time and place for everything of course, and it can feel like choosing those elements is a make-or-break decision.
For Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp, that time and place was during a shopping trip at Party City. Hey, whatever works!
In a recent Variety profile, Schnapp revealed that when it came time to out to his costar Millie Bobby Brown, he ended up blurting it out in the middle of the party-favor store, and people online are loving the hilarious way he went about it.
In his Variety profile, Schnapp said that embracing the fact that his Stranger Things character Will Byers is gay kicked his own coming out into high gear.
“It was just an exponential speed towards accepting it for myself."
"I would be in a completely different place if I didn’t have Will to portray, and to embrace and help me accept myself. I think if I never played that character, I probably would still be closeted."
But it's one thing to accept your queer identity for yourself--it's a whole other to start coming out to the people you love. And Schnapp found it particularly difficult to find the right moment when it came to Brown. He told Variety:
“I kept trying to do it in person with her, and it was too hard."
So, before he filmed his not one but two now-iconic coming out videos on TikTok, he pulled the trigger with Brown in the most hilarious way possible--with a Party City Facetime.
"I just FaceTimed her one day in the middle of a Party City and I was like, ‘Millie, I’m gay.’"
"And she was like, ‘Oh, Schnapper! You told me finally!’”
Hey, whatever works!
On social media, people were absolutely loving Schnapp's hilarious Party City coming out story, and many couldn't help but relate to the fact that Brown definitely seemed to already know Schnapp's big news.
Stranger Things is currently on pause while writers and actors wait for Hollywood producers to agree to pay them what they're worth amid the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.
But when it returns, creators the Duffer brothers have said Schnapp's character's gay identity will be front and center in the upcoming season. No word as yet on whether there will be a coming out scene, though.
We can only hope!
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram