Wentworth Miller on His Past Struggle With Sexuality: I Tried to Kill Myself at 15
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The 'Prison Break' actor remembers the first time he tried to commit suicide, saying that he overdosed on pills during a weekend when his parents were away.

AceShowbiz - Wentworth Miller recalled his past struggle to come to term with his sexuality. Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner in Seattle, he revealed how hiding his sexuality led to multiple suicide attempts and the first time he tried to take his own life was when he was 15.

The "Prison Break" actor, who publicly came out of the closet last month, recalled at the September 7 event his days growing up as a closeted teen, "Growing up I was a target. Speaking the right way, standing the right way, holding your wrist the right way."

"Every day was a test and there was a thousand ways to fail. A thousand ways to portray yourself to not live up to someone else's standards of what was accepted and what was normal. And when you fail the test, which was guaranteed, there was a price to pay. Emotional, psychological. physical."

"And like many of you I paid that price," the 41-year-old star continued in his speech. "The first time I tried to kill myself I was 15. I waited until my family went away for the weekend and I was alone in the house and I swallowed a bottle of pills."

"I don't remember what happened over the next couple days, but I'm pretty sure come Monday morning I was on a bus back to school pretending everything was fine. And when someone asked me if that was a cry for help, I say no, because I told no one."

"When someone asks me if that was a cry for help, I say no. Because I've told no one. You only cry for help if you believe there is help to cry for. And I didn't need it, I wanted out... at 15."

His inner battle continued as he worked as an actor in Hollywood. "I had multiple opportunities to speak my truth, which is that I was gay, but I chose not to. I was out privately to family and friends -- publicly, I was not," he confessed. "I chose to lie -- when I thought about the possibility of coming out, how that might impact me and the career I worked so hard for, I was filled with fear."

"When I thought about kids out there who might be moved or inspired by me taking a stand or speaking my truth, my mental response was consistently, no thank you," he went on. But the "nagging voice" over the "persecution of my brothers and sisters in Russia" inspire him to finally come out. "I thought let me be to someone else, what no one was to me," he said.

Miller spoke publicly of his sexuality in an open letter to decline invitation to Russia's St. Petersburg Film Festival because of the country's anti-gay laws. "Thank you for your kind invitation. As someone who has enjoyed visiting Russia in the past and can also claim a degree of Russian ancestry, it would make me happy to say yes," he wrote. "However, as a gay man, I must decline."

"I am deeply troubled by the current attitude toward and treatment of gay men and women by the Russian government," he added. "The situation is in no way acceptable, and I cannot in good conscience participate in a celebratory occasion hosted by a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly."

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