Luke Evans is opening up like never before about his coming out journey.
In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir Boy from the Valleys: An Unexpected Journey, the actor recalled childhood memories that left him questioning his sexuality.
“The first sense I had of being gay – or at least different — was at the age of eight, when our class got a substitute teacher,” Evans, 45, wrote in his book via The Guardian. “He played rugby for Llanelli and had a sharp haircut and a two-seater sports car. He was handsome and sharply dressed; all the girls fancied him, and all the boys wanted to be him.”
“I remember staring at him, muscles busting out of his shirt, and thinking: wow,” he continued. “Even then, I knew I was looking at him in a different way from the other boys.”
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Evans recalled being bullied from a young age and struggling with his identity partly because he was a Jehovah’s Witness, a Christian denomination that honors Jehovah, the God of the Bible and the Creator of all things.
“Being gay was strictly forbidden by the religion,” Evans wrote. “And so began a tormented tug of war in my head that would go on throughout all my years at school. It’s a terribly dark place to be as a child, knowing you’re somehow ‘wrong,’ but with no idea why that is or how you can fix it.”
In a separate interview with The Guardian, Evans recalled his decision to get baptized in his Jehovah’s Witness faith at age 13. Part of his decision was in hopes that it could somehow reverse his sexuality.
“I thought maybe by doing that, the rest would disappear,” he told the outlet in an interview published Saturday, October 26. “I was so confused, and I had no one to talk to. The only thing I could talk about to people I knew was the religion. It consumed our conversation. I thought, well, focus on something else and hope the other thing goes away.”
Evans was in his early 20s and working in musical theater when he discussed his homosexuality with the Advocate. The Jehovah’s Witness elders later discovered the interview and Evans said he was disfellowshipped or kicked out of the church.
“I had to make this decision,” Evans said. “Either you keep lying and live this life that is making you very unhappy or you take the risk and hope they don’t cut you off and pretend that you are dead.”
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As Evans continues to find success in Hollywood, the actor pictures what life would be like if he had stayed a Jehovah’s Witness.
“I would have lived a very sad, isolated life because I would have had to renounce my sexuality,” Evans shared. “I don’t know whether I’d be here today if that had been the life I’d chosen to live.”
Boy from the Valleys: An Unexpected Journey is available February 7, 2025, in the United States.
