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Mean Girls star Daniel Franzese reveals he ‘forced’ himself into conversion therapy: ‘I needed help, I didn’t want to be gay’-Meghna Amin-Entertainment – Metro
The actor played Damian in Mean Girls.
‘I needed help. I didn’t want to be gay. I didn’t know what to do.’ (Picture: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)
Mean Girls star Daniel Franzese, who you may remember from his iconic ‘You Go Glen CoCo’ quote, has recently reflected on his experience undergoing gay conversion therapy more than 20 years ago.
The actor, 44, revealed that in his early twenties he forced himself into gay conversion therapy with the goal of trying to change his sexual orientation to heterosexual.
The United Nations’ Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity defines conversion therapy as an umbrella term to describe ‘interventions of a wide-ranging nature, all of which have in common the belief that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity can and should be changed.
‘Such practices aim (or claim to aim) at changing people from gay, lesbian or bisexual to heterosexual and from trans or gender diverse to cisgender.’
Speaking to Page Six, Daniel explained: ‘When I was 21, I put myself into gay conversion therapy.’
While members of his Catholic and Pentecostal Christian family were gay and lesbian, and homosexuality was ‘lovingly tolerated’ there, Daniel admitted that ‘the world around’ him made him feel as if ‘being gay was not OK.’
‘I needed help. I didn’t want to be gay. I didn’t know what to do,’ he said.
‘I went to one-on-one therapy sessions with a person who was trying to change me straight and make me pray the gay away and alienate all my allies,’ he continued.
Over the six months, Daniel admitted feeling ‘brainwashed’ into cutting off ties with his supportive mother at the time.
‘When I was in this session, they told me to tell my mom that my mom was the reason that I was leaning toward bisexual thoughts or whatever because she was so open,’ he said.
‘They made me come out to my mom, who was literally like my best ally, and say, “It’s your fault,”‘ leaving her to feel ‘so hurt,’ he shared.
Daniel starred alongside Lindsay Lohan (left) and Lizzy Caplan (middle) in the iconic film (Picture: Michael Gibson/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock)
Daniel came out as gay in an open letter to his character, on the 10 year anniversary of Mean Girls (Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Daniel also revealed that he made the decision to quit the process after the conversion therapist, who had told him in ‘kind of vulgar’ terms that he would not go to hell if he loved God despite what he did in his sexual life, confessed that he ‘used to be gay’ but now had a wife.
‘I didn’t know if I was gay, I was looking for a diagnosis but this dude was gay,’ Daniel shared. ‘And then he was like, “I used to be gay,” and I was like, “Used to be gay? You can’t used to be gay.”
‘And I was like, I gotta go.’
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Around five years later, Daniel starred as Damian Fey in the iconic Mean Girls film, starring Lindsay Lohan.
Damian was an openly gay high school student, however, Daniel himself didn’t come out as gay until ten years later in 2014, where he publicly came out in an open letter to his Mean Girls character.
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