Stranger Things star, Noah Schnapp has announced that he and his character, Will Byers, is gay. Source: Noah Schnapp/Instagram.
US-Canadian actor and star of Stranger Things, Noah Schnapp, 18, has come out as gay in a TikTok video he posted today.
In the short video shared to his 31.4 million TikTok followers, Schnapp told of his friends’ and family’s reaction after working up the courage to tell them of his sexual identity.
On the video, he wrote, “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’”.
During the video, he mouths the words of a voiceover saying, “You know what it never was? That serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, will never be that serious.”
Schnapp plays Will Byers, a character that was implied to be a member of the LGBTQIA+ in the latest season of Stranger Things, leading to significant speculation about the character and Schnapp himself.
Schnapp confirmed his character was gay during an interview with Variety last July,
saying, “He is gay, and he does love Mike.”
In his video’s description, he wrote, “I guess I’m more similar to will [sic] than I thought”.
In less than six hours after posting, Schnapp’s video accumulated 5.2 million views and over 240 thousand comments.
The comments from his fans include “We love you,” “I’m so proud of you,” and “Noah you are iconic”.
The Stranger Things series is considered a cornerstone of Netflix, with the series considered a significant factor in the streaming platform’s dominance since first airing in 2016 to major acclaim.
In 2022 Stranger Things 4 achieved the record for the most watched English-language series on Netflix in first four weeks on the platform, netting 1.35 billion hours viewed.
