Neil Patrick Harris says threat of a looming "scandal" forced him to publicly come out

Out actor Neil Patrick Harris said in an interview published yesterday that he publicly came out as gay in a November 2006 statement to People magazine at the age of 33 in anticipation of online blogs potentially outing the then-young actor.

Talking with Great Company, a videocast hosted by Jamie Laing, Harris (who is now 53) said he began dating his husband David Burtka before he auditioned to play Barney Stinson, a scheming and competitive womanizer, on the sitcom series How I Met Your Mother (which ran from 2005 to 2014). Everyone working on the show knew that Harris and Burtka were a couple, Harris said.

“But that was at a time when there were bloggers on the internet that you would go to read this salacious ‘Try to guess who this actor that’s gay and in the closet,’ kind of comments. So there was a fear that I would be the next target on that,” he said, adding that Burtka would regularly walk behind photographers whenever Harris would walk red carpet events, in order to maintain their private relationship.

Eventually, however, a publicist told a reporter that Harris “was not of that persuasion” when asked directly if Harris was gay. As the comment circulated, Harris felt he had to publicly address it in order to beat any public inquiries for people to come forward with personal knowledge of his sexuality. He then worked with his agent and publicist to release a statement that felt authentic to him.

The statement said, in part, “I am happy to dispel any rumors or misconceptions and am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest.”

In 2007, he told lesbian daytime talkshow host Ellen DeGeneres, “The last thing you want to do is talk about your private life based on scandal. I’m not a very scandalous person and so I didn’t want to have to respond to some story, whether it was lie or truth – so I just made a statement and sort squashed the fires.”

Talking last week with Laing, Harris said, “I think at that point I was a little scared, about what would come from [coming out], like what kind of stigma would come from that. At that time, there were people who plant ‘God hates f**s’ signs on lawns of people, right? So, it had a potential to be a bad week.”

“And none of that, transpired,” he said. “There was indifference at best. There were a lot of people before my coming out who had a much harder time and that paved the way for me to come out, in a way.”

“I was little bit offended that more people weren’t surprised,” he joked. “I expcted a little more ‘Wait, what?? Him?!?? He’s so masc.’”

“Now we live in much different times, and whoever you’re thinking off when you’re j**king off, you should be proud to try and attract,” he added.

Harris also said that, because of his youth as a professional child star in the TV medical family series Doogie Houser M.D., “I regret there was no chapter of anonymity where I could be and explore random potential versions of the multiplicities of myself,” he said, mentioning that he was regularly surrounded by professional adults and didn’t do youthful things like experiment with goth fashions or get drunk at a bar.

He also said that he knew he was gay in his early teens and that he never imagined that he’d ever “couple up” and have kids. Though he spent part of his young adulthood in Los Angeles, California, he said the vast city isn’t walkable and therefore not very flirty for meeting people.

During that time, he didn’t go to the West Hollywood gay strip because, he said, it was for very “out and loud and proud” and he was very “uncertain about how to stand tall” with his sexual orientation. He said he was able to date and socialize more openly, however, when he began working in New York City because he could go to gay bars without people seeming too interested in his fame.