Jonathan Groff Reveals Why He Came Out to His Brother After Seeing Michelangelo’s David: ‘I Started Crying’

Jonathan Groff shares his emotional story of getting published—and what it has to do with the transformative solo trip he took to Italy.

The joy alum, now 38, opens up in the magazine’s November issue Condé Nast Traveler about visiting the city of Florence in 2008 and why to see Michelangelo’s David personally inspired him for the first time to appear before his brother,

At the time, Groff was taking a long-awaited break from a two-year stint as Melchior Gabor on Broadway Spring awakening, he recalls. He traveled alone in Italy before planning to board a train to meet his brother in Rome, and for his last solo day he went to see a famous sculpture at Florence’s Accademia Gallery.

“When you turn the corner, you’ll see rows of unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo,” Groff explains. “These figures are so compressed, as if they are straining to break free from the marble and fighting for air. It hurt just looking at them.”

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The unfinished works “lead to this perfect, liberated form,” he says David. “I started crying and asked myself, ‘What is it about that naked man that makes me so emotional?'”

After that experience, Hamilton star says he sat down and kept a journal while “thinking about how nobody here knows or cares about me, and I decided to come out to my brother.” At the time, he says, “Only my roommate knew I was gay, because he was also my secret boyfriend.”

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When Groff went to meet his brother in Rome, the two went to a restaurant near their hotel. “We had pasta, we were getting wine, and I knew I would never do it if I didn’t tell him right away,” she recalls.

Despite his nervousness, it seems his brother had his own worries.

“He said, ‘Jonathan, I need to talk to you about something.’ He told me all about this girl he was in love with, who is now his wife,” says Groff. He recalls that up until that point, the siblings had never talked about relationships, so, “It was like he was revealing himself to me.”

He continues, noting that his brother “handled it perfectly,” telling him, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt this and I wonder, what’s wrong with you?”

“I shared everything with him. We just showed each other everything,” Groff remembers. “It couldn’t happen anywhere else.”

Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez.

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Groff can currently be seen in Stephen Sondheim We roll happily on Broadway as fictional composer Franklin Shepard stars opposite Daniel Radcliffe as Charley Kringas and Lindsay Mendez as Mary Flynn.

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Source: HIS Education