Dan Kloeffler (ABC News)

Inspired by recently-out actor Zachary Quinto (pronounced KEEN-toh), who revealed he was gay in the pages of New York magazine, Dan Kloeffler of ABC World News Now came out on the air two weeks ago while giving a report about Quinto’s disclosure. Kloeffler did it in the form of admitting a crush on the actor:

“Look, he’s 34, I’m 35, I’m thinking I could lose my distraction about dating actors for that one, maybe.”



Kloeffler also wrote a post on the ABC News blog after the show clarifying why he'd decided to do it:

“Kind of a big moment for me while filling in on World News Now, which is by far the most fun you can legally have at 3:00 in the morning! Yunji de Nies and I were talking about celebrity headlines, when I read the story about Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in “Star Trek,” coming out as gay in a magazine interview. Because WNN is a show where you can offer some personality, I had a little fun with the story saying that I would drop my rule against dating actors.

I’ve never shared that I’m gay on-air, even though I’ve been out to my family, friends and co-workers for years. In fact, an old boyfriend – now best friend – has always given me a hard time about not doing so. But for the same reason that Zach decided to come out, I too, no longer wanted to hide this part of my life.

There have been too many tragic endings and too many cases of bullying because of intolerance. As a kid I wanted someone to look up to, someone that could relate to the feelings I was having. Most of all, I wanted to know that it would get better.

And it did.

As a journalist, I don’t want to be the story, but as a gay man I don’t want to stand silent if I can offer some inspiration or encouragement to kids that might be struggling with who they are.”