Charlie Carver Says a Gay Coworker Slapped Him for Being Too Femme

The incident was one of the catalysts for the star of The Boys in the Band and Ratched to come out.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

October 01 2020 7:35 AM EST

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One of the nine out gay or bisexual stars of Netflix's The Boys in the Band, Charlie Carver says that a gay colleague once slapped his face at an Emmy party as part of a lesson to not to appear too gay at entertainment industry events. The exchange was a catalyst for Carver coming out a while later.

"I was told that I needed to 'get it under control' around people in the business," Carver told Variety of how the incident began.

Later that evening, when Carver asked his colleague what he meant by the statement, the man slapped him.

"It wasn't playful but intentional, pointed and meant to be instructive. A slap," Carver said. "I told him that if he ever touched me again, I would name him."

"That was the moment when I said to myself, 'I can't do this. I cannot police myself in that way,'" he said.

Carver came out a few months later, in January of 2016, on Instagram.

In a recent interview with The Advocate, Carver, who also stars in Ratched on Netflix, said he was "intensely grateful" for the support he received once he came out.

"To have kind of other champions in this business who gave me a chance, Ryan Murphy being one of them, they saw something in me and they let me be a part of it," Carver said. "Then, opportunities led to other opportunities ... I started kind of stepping into myself, and I believe when you do that, doors open."