Connor Franta has amassed more than 3.6 million subscribers on YouTube over the past three years. He chose to reveal a personal secret with all of them in his latest video.
"2014 is truly the year that I have accepted who I am and become happy with that person. So today, I want to talk to you guys about that and be open and honest and tell you that I'm gay," Franta said in the nearly 6-and-a-half- minute video.
The 22-year-old YouTube star went on to explain how he always knew that he was "a little bit different than everyone else" growing up, but never pinpointed the reason until age 12 when he entered seventh grade. Living in a small, Midwestern town in Wisconsin, Franta chose to ignore his true feelings and continued dating girls throughout most of his teenage years.
"Fast forward into high school, I tried to avoid it by dating girls. All I wanted to do was be like everyone else," he said. "So I would date girls. I would kiss girls, but I would feel nothing... I just wanted to be normal."
Franta first came out to a friend in January. He then slowly began telling everyone else in his life including his friends, his parents and his three siblings.
"Everyone was so great. I am so fortunate," he said. "They didn't even look at me different. They didn't treat me different. They just said, 'OK,' like it was no big deal. This whole thing that I had built up inside me to be this huge deal for 22 years... wasn't."
The college student chose to come out for several reasons. He puts the majority of his life on the Internet and wanted this announcement to be one those things. He has also watched "every coming-out video possible" at least "four times."
"I'm making this video for anyone who needs it. It's OK. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine," he said. "You are who you are and you should love that person."
Franta got choked up at the end but lightened the mood with his signature sendoff asking his viewers to subscribe to his YouTube page and watch his previous videos before face-palming the camera.
