Jonathan Groff is opening up about reconnecting with his ex-boyfriend Gavin Creel before he tragically passed away last year.
The Tony-winning actor shared in a June 2024 interview that while he was dating Gavin in 2009, he was inspired by the actor to come out as gay publicly.
Jonathan told The New Yorker at the time, “Then I fell in love with Gavin Creel. We were doing this march on Washington. The woman from Broadway.com was interviewing me, and she was, like, ‘Who do you represent at this march?’ And I froze. She saw me get tight and was, like, ‘Oh, never mind.’ I remember looking at Gavin, who was holding a bullhorn, directing people into the march. And I was, like, I f–king love him so much. I’m coming out. I’m at the f–king gay marriage-equality march! I walked back over to her and said, ‘I’m here because I’m gay. And that’s what I’m sharing with you.’ She said, ‘On the record?’ And I said, ‘Yes, on the record.’ I hadn’t planned it. It just happened that way.”
The photo seen here was taken of Jonathan and Gavin at that exact march!
Jonathan spoke with the same interviewer at The New Yorker Festival this past weekend and shared how that interview helped reconnect him with Gavin.
Keep reading to find out more…
“We had dated 15 years ago. I shared in the interview how he’d changed my life and how that relationship altered the course of my existence,” Jonathan said (via Vulture).
Gavin texted Jonathan after the interview was released and told him, “I think I know today that I mean as much to you as you mean to me.”
Jonathan said that he and Gavin continued to talk “all the way up until the Tonys that year.”
The last time that Jonathan heard from Gavin was after he won the Tony for Best Actor for his performance in the musical Merrily We Roll Along.
“He texted me congratulations,” Jonathan said. “And that was the last interaction we ever had.”
Three months later, Gavin died from cancer at the age of 48.
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