Bowen Yang. Photo: NBC
In a candid conversation with Willie Geist for Sunday TODAY, Bowen Yang, the 34-year-old Wicked and Saturday Night Live star, reflected on his adolescence, including his parents’ decision to send him to gay conversion therapy.
Yang recounted that his parents offered him the opportunity to attend NYU, near his sister, if he underwent the therapy. He wryly noted their unawareness of NYU’s large LGBTQ+ population, adding with a laugh, “I just knew I had to live there.”
He also shared the circumstances of his parents discovering he was gay, explaining it wasn’t a direct coming out but rather them “stumbling upon something.” He expressed empathy for their reaction, stating, “They were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t realize this is what we were dealing with. Where we come from, this doesn’t happen.’… I give them a lot of grace for that, because they just have no context for it.”
Yang admitted he hadn’t fully explored his identity before his parents’ discovery, saying he “probably wasn’t brave enough back then to express that, or to package it in a way that they could understand,” emphasizing the cultural differences. He also noted his later understanding of self, saying, “Identity is this really fickle thing; it’s not something that you arrive at until much later in life, I think. … I didn’t really get a grasp on who I was until like, two years ago.”
In a lighter moment, Yang recalled a significant first trip to New York City as a 14-year-old. Unable to get tickets to Wicked, he pressed his face against the Gershwin Theatre’s glass, feeling a connection to the musical he loved. That same day, his family took the studio tour at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where they sat in the SNL bleachers – a foreshadowing of his future success.
Yang’s full interview is scheduled to air on Sunday TODAY with Willie Geiston NBC News on Sunday, April 13.
