Noah Schnapp used a TikTok audio to reveal that he’s gay. On Thursday, the Stranger Things actor posted a video of himself lip-syncing to a viral sound, sharing his sexuality and his family’s reaction to the news.
“When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘We know,’” he wrote onscreen with a video of himself lip-syncing a viral TikTok sound: “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, it will never be that serious.”
In the video’s caption, Schnapp referred to his Stranger Things character Will Byers, whom he confirmed in an interview earlier this year is gay. “I guess I’m more similar to will than I thought,” Schnapp wrote about Will.
Schnapp’s comment section was filled with congratulatory messages, including one from TikToker Chris Olsen, who wrote, “Welcome king.” “He said method acting,” joked one TikTok user in a comment. “I’m so proud of you!” wrote a third commenter.
Earlier in Stranger Things‘ history, Schnapp declined to reveal his character’s sexuality, saying “I find that people do reach to put a label on him and just want to know, so badly… He’s just confused and growing up. And that’s what it is to be a kid,” he previously told Variety.
But over the summer, he confirmed in an interview that Will had been wrestling with being gay, similar to how he was in his personal life.
“Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing,” he said over the summer. “Now it’s 100% clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. But before, it was a slow arc. I think it is done so beautifully, because it’s so easy to make a character just like all of a sudden be gay.”