‘Stranger Things’ actor Noah Schnapp comes out as gay

By Niha Masih

Noah Schnapp, the 18-year-old actor known for playing Will Byers, a central character on the sci-fi horror series “Stranger Things” — the latest season of which is listed as Netflix’s most popular TV hit —has come out as gay. The announcement was an instance of life following art: In July, he told Variety magazine that his character is gay and has feelings for his friend on the show, Mike Wheeler.

On Thursday, Schnapp posted an eight-second video on his TikTok account with the note: “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.’”

Schnapp, dressed in a gray hoodie and lying on a pillow, smiles into the camera and lip-syncs: “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, it will never be that serious.”

In an apparent reference to his character, the video is captioned “I guess I’m more similar to Will than I thought.” In the show’s fourth season, which was released in 2022, there was fan speculation about Byers’s sexual orientation.

Schnapp had previously been ambiguous in interviews about his character’s sexuality, but he confirmed the speculation this year.

“Now it’s 100% clear that he is gay,” Schnapp told Variety of Byers.

“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,” he added.

Set in a fictional Indiana town in the 1980s, the show revolves around Eleven, a teen with telekinetic powers who battles supernatural mysteries and deals with adolescent drama alongside a group of young friends. The show’s upcoming fifth season will be its last.

Schnapp’s TikTok coming-out video had more than 5.7 million likes and 257,000 comments as of late Thursday. NSYNC pop star Lance Bass, who is gay, was among the commenters, writing: “Welcome to the fam! Your welcome basket is in the mail.”

The actor won a People’s Choice Award this year. His credits also include the Oscar-nominated film “Bridge of Spies.”

January 6, 2023 at 12:00 a.m. EST