Back in February, fans of Netflix’s Locke & Key star Connor Jessup were shook when he seemingly went Instagram official with boyfriend and 13 Reasons Why actor Miles Heizer on Valentine’s Day. Now, the 25-year-old has opened up about his relationship. Not only did he reveal that the couple has been together for “about 18 months,” but he also said Miles was the reason he decided to come out publicly.

“It was something I’d been thinking about more and more, and the reasons that I wasn’t saying anything felt thinner to me every day. The excuses that I’d been giving myself for years were dissolving, and I couldn’t think of any reason not to,” Connor explained during a recent interview with Attitude magazine. “I’ll spare you the boring story of how we met because it’s truly unexciting, but I will say — not to get sappy — that the other factor that led to me deciding to come out, and I guess maybe one of the sparks at the beginning of the fuse, was that I fell in love.”

He continued, “When you’re happy, you want to be happy publicly, and it made me think about the whole construction of my life in a way that I had been avoiding. I probably wouldn’t have [come out] if that hadn’t happened.”

As fans know, Connor came out to his Instagram followers in June 2019. For those who missed it, he penned a heartfelt post about his “ongoing” self-acceptance journey.

“I’ve been out for years in my private life, but never quite publicly,” he captioned the photo. “I knew I was gay when I was thirteen, but I hid it for years. I folded it and slipped it under the rest of my emotional clutter. Not worth the hassle. No one will care anyway. If I can just keep making it smaller, smaller, smaller…My shame took the form of a shrug, but it was shame.”

During the magazine interview, the actor also said that before meeting Miles, he put his romantic life on hold.

“The excuse was always that I was busy working and there was never the time to meet people — that’s all true to an extent, but also I think I was afraid,” he said. “I wasn’t in a relationship and I wasn’t looking to be because I was ignoring that part of me. I put myself on pause for a while. So, I had relationships, but nothing like the one I’m in right now.”

Connor concluded, “This is my first time being in love.”

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