Our first guest was the captain of his football
team in high school.
And during a school assembly he surprised
some of his classmates when he publicly came out as gay.
Take a look.
Hiding from who I was put a tremendous amount of stress
on me at such a young age.
And only got worse as the years went by.
I wanted so badly to be straight.
There were countless nights where
I would cry myself to sleep begging to wake up straight,
asking why it had to be me.
Why can't I just be normal, I would say.
It had been tearing me up inside for too long.
So one day at a friend's house, towards the end of the summer
I came to the decision that I would come out.
I told a few of my closest friends.
I can't even explain the weight that has been lifted off
my shoulders after that.
For the first time in my life I could finally
be true to myself.
I came to the conclusion that I really
didn't care what people thought anymore.
I owed it to myself to be me.
So great.
So now a year later Jake is playing division one football
at Indiana State University.
From St. Louis, Missouri please welcome Jake Bain.
Can I first just say, before I came out
I used to watch your show like, all the time.
And it just means so much to me to actually be here now
and be on your show.
And you've done so much for the entire LGBT community.
And just humanity as a whole.
So it means so much for me to be on the show with you.
Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, first of all let me say, I admire you.
I'm proud of you.
I know how hard it is for anyone to come out,
especially a football player in a small town.
And you looked very, very nervous doing that speech.
Yeah.
How long had you been thinking about it?
Honestly probably three or four years.
I was really nervous at first.
We had just won the state championship
my sophomore year of football.
And right after that everything--
I was just like, at an all time high at that point.
And I was getting so much attention for athletics.
But at the same time in the back of my head.
I had started to start questioning my sexuality.
And what it was that I truly wanted.
So I was really nervous at first.
And then my school was super supportive and everything.
That's great.
But I knew that it could be different once I came out
and I was actually out there in the public.
So I was nervous at first.
But I was definitely embraced and loved by everybody.
Right, that's great.
Because it's a really conflicting thing
to feel really proud of yourself and good at something.
And then in the back of your mind
have shame and carry shame around.
So you're living this kind of private secret conflicted life.
And it's not healthy, you know.
So that's so great you did that.
All right, so the school was supportive?
Yes, yes.
I went to a pretty small high school in St. Louis, Missouri.
But it was a very accepting community.
Everybody from the students, to the faculty,
to even the staff and the custodial workers
all just embraced me with so much love and support.
And I never found anybody there who
disliked me because I was gay.
So now you're playing for Indiana State.
Yep.
And how's that going?
I mean you must've been worried about your career in football.
Right.
I had a lot of nerves coming out.
Because there aren't very many out,
openly gay football players, so--
Or any.
I couldn't count them on one hand.
So once I got to Indiana State it was like all of those nerves
were set aside really fast.
Because even before I committed there I talked to the coach
about my sexuality and that I wanted
to be openly gay at Indiana State.
And he assured me from the very beginning
that I was going to be accepted by the community at Indiana
State.
And that my teammates were going to treat me just
like anybody else on the team.
So that just meant so much to me to hear that from the older
guys right away.
Well, and that means that other people hearing that now.
And if everybody would have the courage to do what you did then
we wouldn't have that homophobia.
We wouldn't have that fear.
Exactly.
And so you're going to inspire other people
just like I inspired you.
And gave you the hopes and dreams.
Because life can be beautiful.
Like, life doesn't have to be hard.
It can be everything you want it to be.
And you have a boyfriend.
Hunter is in the audience.
You've been with him--
Yes.
Hi, hunter.
Hello.
I'm so excited to be here.
And Hunter is with his mom there, hi.
So that's fantastic.
And to have the support of your parents, that's everything.
It really is.
So you've been with Hunter for two years?
Yes.
I met him at a party and we kind of connected pretty fast.
I kind of always had like a sneaky feeling
that he may be gay, so--
We weren't both out at the time.
But we just kind of connected.
And we talk all the time now.
I mean, even more we're not with each other.
Because he goes to UNC.
So it's about a 10 hour drive or like a two hour flight.
Oh, wow.
It gets hard.
But he got to come to Indiana State a few times
over the football season.
So it's been great.
Oh, that's so great.
You've got to be so proud of him, too.
Oh, I'm so proud.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
This is crazy.
All right, well so the NCAA regulations
say you can't accept gifts.
Because you're an athlete or some stupid thing like that.
So Hunter is going to get a six night stay at the John Michel
Cousteau resort in Fiji.
And so maybe he'll bring you, I don't know.
What?
Oh my god!
There's guided snorkeling, rain forests, round trip airfare
from Fiji Airways.
Thank you so much.
We'll be right back.
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel
so you can see more awesome videos.
Like videos of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things,
like ball peen hammer.
And also some videos of Ellen and other celebrities
if you're into that sort of thing.
Ya!
[BLEEP] God [BLEEP]!