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Former Disney Channel actor Matthew Scott Montgomery is opening up about his experiences with conversion therapy, sharing how his friends Demi Lovato and Hayley Kiyoko helped him understand how to accept himself as he was.
Montgomery, who appeared in recurring roles on shows such as Shake It Up, Sonny with a Chance, and So Random!, discussed that harrowing time in his life on a Tuesday episode of fellow Disney alum Christy Carlson Romano’s podcast Vulnerable. In the interview, Montgomery shared that his conservative parents reacted poorly to his coming out as queer, and that they allegedly set him up with a conversion therapist. Although Montgomery was over 18 at the time, he felt as though he “deserved” to go to this reparative therapy because of his conservative upbringing. (It’s worth noting that so-called conversion therapy is a widely discredited practice, condemned by virtually every major medical association for the dangers it poses to LGBTQ+ mental health.)
On his days off, in between shoots for Disney Channel and performing in plays, Montgomery shared he was undergoing the therapy for three hours a week. “At the time the career stuff was going so well that I was still in this broken prison brain of thinking, ‘I’m on red carpets, I’m on TV every week, this is too good, I should be punished on my days off,’” the actor explained.
Montgomery elaborated that he was seeing the late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, known as one of the most influential figures in the “ex-gay” movement. Specifically, his practice was “for gay men who wanted to turn from gay to straight and make it as a straight movie star in LA,” Montgomery explained. “I’ve had other celebrity gay actors who were like, ‘I went there, too.’ They understand what that’s like and there are certain side effects you deal with,” he added.
The actor credited his experience in the play, Yellow, in which he portrayed a gay character who is rejected by his birth family but accepted and adopted by his neighbors, with helping him quit conversion therapy. “That was the therapy I actually needed, because I got the experience of what it was like to have a family not only love me but celebrate me and really accept me,” he said.
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