Jonathan Groff.Photo:ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty
Jonathan Groffis sharing his emotionalcoming out story— and what it has to do with a transformative solo trip he took to Italy.
TheGleealum, now 38, opens up in the November issue ofCondé Nast Travelerabout visiting the city of Florence in 2008 and why seeing Michelangelo’sDavidin person for the first time inspired him to come out to his brother,
At the time, Groff was heading out on a long-awaited vacation following his two-year run as Melchior Gabor in Broadway’sSpring Awakening, he recalls. He was traveling around Italy alone before he planned to take a train to meet his brother in Rome and for his last solo day, he went to see the famous sculpture at Florence’s Accademia Gallery.
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The incomplete works “lead up to this perfect, liberated form," he says ofDavid. “I started crying and wondered, ‘What is it about this naked man that makes me so emotional?’”
After that experience, theHamiltonstar says he sat down and journaled as he was “thinking about how nobody here knew or cared about me, and I decided to come out to my brother.” At the time, he says, “Only my roommate knew I was gay, because he was also my secret boyfriend.”
Jonathan Groff.Getty
When Groff went to meet his brother in Rome, the two went to a restaurant near their hotel. “We were getting pasta, we were getting wine, and I knew that if I didn’t tell him right then, I would never do it,” he recalls.
In spite of his nervousness, it would seem his brother had his own anxieties.
“He said, ‘Jonathan, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’ He told me all about this girl that he was in love with, who is now his wife," Groff says. He recalls that until that point, the siblings had never spoken about relationships so, “It was like he was coming out to me.”
He continues, noting that his brother had “teed it up perfectly,” saying to him, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt this, and I’m wondering, What about you?”
“I shared everything with him. We just showed all of ourselves to each other,” Groff remembers. “It never could have happened anywhere else.”
Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez.Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Bruce Glikas/WireImage
Currently, Groff can be seen inStephen Sondheim’sMerrily We Roll Alongon Broadway as the fictional composer Franklin Shepard starring oppositeDaniel Radcliffeas Charley Kringas and Lindsay Mendez as Mary Flynn.
source: people.com
