David Yost: I'm Gay

In an interview with The Advocate running online next week, David Yost, who from 1993 to 1996 starred as the blue Power Ranger in more than 200 episodes of the children's television phenomenon Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, talks about the taunting and teasing he endured on the set of the show, and the years of ups and downs that have finally made him able to say the words, "I'm gay."

"A week before I left the TV show I made a commitment to myself saying, "If I get called 'f****t' one more time, I'm walking because I can't handle it any more," Yost says. Within a week it happened, and it happened from a higher-level person on the show."

Yost says he spent the next few years doing everything he could to "pray the gay away."

"There were times when I would call prayer hotlines like Joyce Meyer's prayer hotline or Pat Robertson's 700 Club prayer hotline and instead was condemned over the phone," he says.

Instead of helping, all the prayer ultimately led to a mental breakdown and a five-week stay in the hospital -- and because his parents didn't know he was gay at this point, they assumed it was the pressure of having not worked in a while.

Yost says he's coming out now because he's "tired of hearing stories about teenagers still taking their lives and committing suicide because of who they are and not understanding that there are resources for them to get help."

Check back to Advocate.com next week for our full interview with David Yost.