Photography by Danielle Levitt
With his platform as an op-ed columnist at The New York Times (the first openly gay one in the newspaper's history), Bruni says he's been encouraged to write about issues important to him as a gay man. He's used his perch at one of the most well-known publications in the world to not only articulate the national discussion surrounding marriage equality, but to use it to tell stories of men struggling to come out, publicly and politically.
"When I was a young man, I had resolved that I would live my life out of the closet," he says. "I thought that that was a decision that was going to cost me something, that it was going to narrow down what I could do in life. I wasn't prepared to be told at the time that it would be a broadening experience, that it would be seen as a valuable perspective at the greatest newspaper in the world."
Photographed at Dune Studios in New York City on September 16, 2013