Chris Appleton is opening up about a challenging time in his life.
The celebrity hairstylist, 42, appeared on the Wednesday, August 6, episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast and recounted what it was like telling his two children, Billy, 22, and Kitty-blu, 20 — whom he shares with his ex-partner Kate Katon — that he was gay.
Appleton explained that he was bullied growing up and didn’t want his kids — who were 6 and 8 years old when he told them about his sexuality — to experience any teasing because of their father.
“The hardest part was telling my kids,” Appleton — who has worked with Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez and Ariana Grande — admitted. “My job as a dad, I felt, was to protect my kids.”
“I just didn’t want them to ever have that shame that was put on me onto them,” he shared. “In a way, I felt like a disease. I felt like it was a cancer. I wanted to cut it out. “Like, ‘If I could just get rid of that, then I could just be a normal dad for them.”
Appleton said his kids were “upset” and “confused” when he came out to them.
“All of a sudden, I just felt like I just messed their life up,” Appleton confessed. “I felt like I’d failed as a dad because my job was to protect them. And if anyone ever hurt them, I would protect them. But I was the one hurting them.”
Appleton revealed that he ended up trying to take his life because of the situation.
“I felt like it would be better for them to have a dad that was dead, than a dad that was gay,” he recounted.
However, Appleton, who described the experience as a “turning point” in his life, woke up in the hospital and had a revelation.
“I just remember thinking, ‘What about if I just surrender?’” he recalled. “What about if I’m just gay and I just be that?”
Appleton married actor Lukas Gage in 2023, but he filed for divorce six months later.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source starmagazine.com ’
