Former teen heartthrob Ryan Phillippe is opening up about how going gay-for-pay early in his acting career caused his parents to freak out and practically “disown” him.You might not remember, but Phillippe played the first openly gay character on daytime television when he was cast as Billy Douglas on ABC’s One Life To Livein 1992.Phillippe was just a teenager at the time and the role was pretty controversial for the early ’90s.
Looking back, he says, taking the part did serious harm to his personal life.“I had grown up going to, like, Baptist school and Christian school,” the 46-year-old tells Female First.