“The journey to pride was a long one for me,” he wrote alongside vintage photos of gay rights protests as well as a video of him playfully kissing another man on the cheek. “I love the LGBTQ+ community and am incredibly proud and thankful to be a part of it. So much won. So much more to fight for. #pride.”,” I asked the British actor what was going through his mind when he hit the post button.
“I wasn’t aware of how much I needed to do that and how much I’d potentially hung onto, conveniently hidden behind,” Aldridge continued. “It just felt so — I felt so powerful. I felt so powerful to be able to stand alongside and be part of my community.” Aldridge says he could never have imagined playing gay characters when he first got into the business. He remembers constantly worrying about not being able to play straight men convincingly. “It makes me emotional to think about it,” he says. “I left drama school closeted.”
Now that he’s walked through the closet, his world has gotten much bigger and, well, gayer. “I suddenly realized that I had held myself from desires that I had,” Aldridge says. “I didn’t know that I loved ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race.’ I forgot or I’d denied to myself early on that I love musicals. I love divas.”
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