Matthew Scott Montgomery is best known for starring on Disney Channel original series like Shake It Up, Austin & Ally, and So Random!. In a recent interview with the Vulnerable podcast – hosted by his fellow Disney alum Christy Carlson Romano – Montgomery revealed how he survived the experience of being sent to conversion therapy when he was younger.
After coming out to his parents, Montgomery’s father sent him to a conversion therapy format dubbed as “reparative therapy.” The actor explained, “In the environment I grew up in, you are taught that you deserve to be punished all the time.”
Despite having worked for Disney for many years, however, Montgomery is certain that the House of Mouse had no idea about what he was going through. He explained:
“Disney was always really great to me. Disney had nothing to do with it. It was not their idea. They didn’t know, no one knew. My cast mates didn’t know at the time.”
Despite the fact that Disney had no involvement in the decision, Montgomery did point out that this conversion therapy camp marketed itself as a place for “gay men who wanted to be turned from gay to straight and make it as a straight movie star.” In other words, his parents were seemingly concerned about turning Montgomery straight so that he could succeed as a “straight actor.”
Thankfully, Montgomery reconnected with some of his Disney Channel costars, which pulled him out of believing that he deserved to be punished and needed to undergo any kind of conversion therapy. Specifically, the actor named Hayley Kiyoko and Demi Lovato as two people who really helped him through those trying times.
“People like Hayley Kiyoko, who was a guest star on So Random!,” he recalled. “She and I became friends and we bonded. When you find another queer person, you just feel it… You latch onto that person.”
He added, “And Demi was a great friend with that stuff. Demi’s family [is like] my family. That’s my soulmate. That’s my person who loves me the deepest.”
It’s unacceptable that so many conversion therapy facilities are still open and fully operational to this day. We hope that more celebrities speaking out against these practices will help us one day shut them all down before another LGBTQ+ person is hurt and traumatized.