Pitch Perfectstar Ben Platt has come out in both an emotional new video and an interview with People. Oh, you thought he was already out? According to Platt, he's been out since he was 12 but is only now making his sexuality public.
Platt's new music video for "Ease My Mind," off of his upcoming album Sing to Me Instead, features actor Charlie Carver as his love interest. Platt said the decision to cast his love interest as male was easy, explaining that "when we were conceptualizing this sort of loose narrative that we wanted to connect through the videos, there was not really any moment where we had to decide it should be about me and a man as opposed to anything else because it was just, 'We're going to represent what this was inspired by,' which was this man that I was in love with. So it was really a no-brainer."
Platt tells People that he's grateful for the "first opportunity to represent my relationships and the men that I've loved" in his music. "I've been out since I was 12 years old to my family and anyone in my life," he says. "I've never sort of hidden that or been ashamed by it. It's just part of me."
Platt tells People that after leaving Broadway blockbuster Dear Evan Hansen, in which he originated the title role, he wrote 40-50 songs before narrowing them down to a single storyline for an album. Platt says he "definitely got very anxious and started to really process the reality of sharing these songs with everyone and sharing myself with everyone."
"But I really felt like the only reason I wanted to do this was to try to do that authentically and have the opportunity to show myself sort of outside the context of characters."
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