Ryan Phillippe was shunned over gay role

One Life to LiveActor Ryan Phillippe has revealed how he was shunned by some during his time in the ABC soap One Life to Live in the early 1990’s because he played the role of gay teenager Billy Douglas.

 

One Life to Live Actor Ryan Phillippe has revealed how he was shunned by some during his time in the ABC soap One Life to Live in the early 1990’s because he played the role of gay teenager Billy Douglas. Phillippe appeared in One Life to Live between 1992 and 1993 as gay teen Billy Douglas and was one of the genre’s first openly gay characters in America. The inclusion of a gay character in soaps was still a deeply controversial issue in America – and to some extent still is – and Phillippe has spoken about how some of his peers shunned him because of the role.

 

“I would worry, ‘What will the people at school think?’ And they shunned me in a lot of ways. But it ended up being an incredible experience and such a time of growth for me.” – Ryan Phillippe in the latest issue of Men’s Health.

 

Recent OLTL gay couple; KishMore recently One Life to Live introduced new gay couple Kyle Lewis and Oliver Fish, dubbed Kish by fans, but announced earlier this year that the duo were being written out of the soap because not all fans had welcomed their storylines. As the World Turns, the soon to end CBS series, has also added a gay couple to their line-up in recent years with “Nuke”, Luke and Noah, which also proved equally controversial with some sections of America. However, Luke and Noah are still on the soap after several years and their storylines are still running.

 

Ryan Phillippe has appeared in many a Hollywood film since his stint as Billy Douglas in the mid 1990s. Some of his more famous movies include; I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, Gosford Park and Crash.