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

Jonathan Groff is sharing his emotional coming out story — and what it has to do with a transformative solo trip he took to Italy.

The Glee alum, now 38, opens up in the November issue of Condé Nast Traveler about visiting the city of Florence in 2008 and why seeing Michelangelo's David in person for the first time inspired him to come out to his brother,

At the time, Groff was heading out on a long-awaited vacation following his two-year run as Melchior Gabor in Broadway's Spring Awakening, he recalls. He was traveling around Italy alone before he planned to take a train to meet his brother in Rome and for his last solo day, he went to see the famous sculpture at Florence's Accademia Gallery.

“When you turn the corner, there are rows of other unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo,” Groff explains. “These figures are so constricted, like they're straining to be released from the marble and fighting for air. I ached just looking at them.”

The incomplete works “lead up to this perfect, liberated form," he says of David. "I started crying and wondered, ‘What is it about this naked man that makes me so emotional?’”

After that experience, the Hamilton star says he sat down and journaled as he was “thinking about how nobody here knew or cared 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.”

When Groff went to meet his brother in Rome, the two went to a restaurant near their hotel. “We were getting pasta, we were getting wine, and I knew that if I didn't tell him right then, I would never do it," he recalls.

In spite of his nervousness, it would seem his brother had his own anxieties. 

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

He continues, noting that his brother had “teed it up perfectly,” saying to him, “This is the first time I've ever felt this, and I'm wondering, What about you?”

“I shared everything with him. We just showed all of ourselves to each other,” Groff remembers. “It never could have happened anywhere else.”

Currently, Groff can be seen in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway as the fictional composer Franklin Shepard starring opposite Daniel Radcliffe as Charley Kringas and Lindsay Mendez as Mary Flynn.