More than 100 pills
Tim Gunn and Houston's own Trey Speegle take gay teen suicide to task
The gay rights community applauded Tim Gunn when the Bravo reality TV star and former teacher at Parsons' fashion design school released a video on YouTube expressing support for struggling gay teens in the wake of a string of recent suicides. In a particularly revealing moment for the otherwise stoic academic, Gunn told the tale of his own suicide attempt as a 17-year-old.
"I'm very happy today that that attempt was unsuccessful, but at the time, it was all that I could contemplate," he says. "I thought, I need to end things right now."
Gunn survived the 100-plus-pill attempt, and on the video, celebrates his current success.
He relates to his viewers, "I understand the desperation. I understand the despair. I understand how isolated you can feel." He even advocates himself as among the personal supporters of troubled gay youth.
At the end of the clip, he directs viewers to the Trevor Project, a national 24-hour, confidential hotline for gay and questioning youth, with which Houston's hometown artist Trey Speegle is heavily involved.
Despite having a name befitting a gay porn star, Gunn has shied away from public disclosure of an active homosexual life. In fact, he admits to not having had sex since a brutal breakup in 1982 and describes himself as "very single." In an interview with Metro Weekly, he explains that he was unaware of his sexuality until the age of 22, and his high school troubles stemmed from a crippling stutter and severe loneliness at boarding school.
Yet through it all, Gunn has followed his own mantra: "Make it work."