“There was a huge spate of teen suicides that were happening,” Zachary Quinto told Variety in a recent interview.

“I just felt like I had an obligation at this point,” he said, referring to his public coming out in 2011.

Just a few years (when Quinto played Spock on the Star Trek reboot), he felt that “coming out would have potentially had an impact on my career and it wouldn’t have been a good one.”

But then in 2011, teen suicides amongst the LGBTQ community were beginning to rise…

“That was at a time when a lot of young gay kids were killing themselves around the country because of bullying,” Quinto revealed, later adding “the hypocrisy was too much to bear for me to be enjoying this life that I had created for myself and not acknowledging my identity as a gay man.”

Quinto added that he felt like his decision to remain in the closet “was actively harming a group of young people who the choice to come out could benefit.”

Zachary Quinto in currently starring in Netflix adaptation of Boys In The Band, which sees a number of his co-stars disrobe.