Chris Appleton Has Opened Up About Coming Out As Gay At 26 After Welcoming Two Children With A Long-Term Girlfriend

Manny Carabel / Getty ImagesChris Appleton has opened up about coming out as gay later in life — and how he had to battle with letting go of the “guilt” and “shame” surrounding his sexuality.The 41-year-old celebrity hairstylist, who works with the likes of Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez, admitted that he thought he had it “all figured out” when he and his long-term partner welcomed two children in his 20s.Speaking on Bethenny Frankel’s podcast, Just B, Chris explained that while he and the mother of his children never married, they were together for nine years before he realized that he is gayDia Dipasupil / Getty Images“I think coming out later on in life — I was 26 — was incredibly difficult because I had two kids, I had a partner I’d been with for nine years, I thought I had it all figured out.

Everybody else also thought I had it figured out,” he began.“So when you’re all of a sudden then changing the record, people are like: ‘Well, you must have always known,’ and I didn’t realize I did.”“I was bullied quite a bit at school, and people used to say I was gay because I did hair,” Chris went on.

“I never was too focused on sexuality, but people at school always mentioned it, and, as a kid, you just don’t ever want to be different — I already felt different because I was dyslexic.”“I was, I guess, just determined to prove everyone wrong, but so much that I did myself a disjustice [sic],” he admitted.“It wasn’t until I experienced it at 26 that I was also going through it as well as everyone else.

The difficult thing is, then you’re hurting people around you that you’ve committed to, and you feel that.”“People feel like they know you, and you feel like you know them, and all of a sudden you’re telling a different story which you’re trying to figure out,” Chris added.“So it was really hard for a few years, it was really difficult.”Bethenny then praised Chris for realizing that “some...