Actor forced out of the closet, and the man who outed him is now apologizing

Alex Diaz is a Filipino-Scottish actor and model who lives in Manila. Last month, he came out as bisexual to his 580,000 Instagram followers after a man claiming to be an online fitness coach shared screenshots of a private Instagram message he received from the actor.

In the conversation, 25-year-old Diaz (pictured right) asked the man if he “accepted indecent proposals.” When the man said no, Diaz apologized then asked him not to share their conversation. But in an act of deliberate cruelty, the man leaked the conversation anyway, and they quickly spread on social media before being published by an online tabloid. This effectively forced Diaz out of the closet.

After laying low for a few days, Diaz finally took to Instagram to break his silence.

“Thank you for the thousands of messages of love and support all over twitter and my message requests here on Instagram,” he wrote to his 580,000 followers. “Never again will I be shackled by the fear of what might be said about who I am for fear of losing my career and instead, I will seek help, heal and champion change, acceptance and representation for the bisexual community and/or anyone who is met with prejudice in our society.”

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thank you for the thousands of messages of love and support all over twitter and my message requests here on instagram. I am going to release a full statement when the time is right but for now I would just like to say sorry and thank you. I ask forgiveness from my management, the brands, supporters, friends, my family and everyone else I let down by what I did and/or who I am. Im sorry, I was wrong in my actions and failed to uphold the values I so strongly try to convey online. It was not my intention to hurt anyone or elude the truth of who I am for all these years but rather a showbiz decisions based on the state of our nation in regards to acceptance and representation of who I am. But I sincerely thank everyone for not failing to remind me that I am human and that I too am loved. —Never again will I be shackled by the fear of what might be said about who I am for fear of losing my career and instead, I will seek help, heal and champion change, acceptance and representation for the bisexual community and/or anyone who is met with prejudice in our society. I see now that my actions are not caused by but rather the effect of the unhealthy and toxic suppression of all of who I am as a human being. Im in a better place now. My passion is performing, making people happy & making people smile. My only hope is that I can continue to use this platform to do such in whatever new path this universe-given experience has opened up for me. For now, I will rest, reevaluate and come back stronger and better than ever. I love you all, I have learned and I am growing. thank you. ??️‍?⚤

A post shared by Alex (@alexandermcdizz) on Oct 21, 2019 at 11:12pm PDT

Diaz continued, “It was not my intention to hurt anyone or elude the truth of who I am for all these years but rather a showbiz decision based on the state of our nation in regards to acceptance and representation of who I am.”

He concluded, “My passion is performing, making people happy & making people smile. My only hope is that I can continue to use this platform to do such in whatever new path this universe-given experience has opened up for me. For now, I will rest, reevaluate and come back stronger and better than ever. I love you all, I have learned and I am growing.”

The man who outed him, whose identity has been revealed to be Miguel Lagman Chanco (pictured left), has now come out to say he feels really bad about what he did.

Speaking to the online gossip blog Pep, Chanco says he has since reached out to Diaz to apologize. “I have reached out to Alex Diaz and apologized to him. He graciously accepted, and I am so thankful for that.”

Chanco then issued a blanket apology to the entire LGBTQ community for engaging in a vicious homophobic act that has often been used to inflict pain and ruin the lives of innocent people.

“I’d like to extend my apologies to the whole LGBTQ community and to everyone who was affected,” he said. “It was an incident that I regret. Looking forward, I hope our respective work can continue to empower people, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”

While the circumstances leading up to Diaz’s coming out are cruel and unfair, he seems to be making the most of the situation by refusing to live in fear. He is also fortunate in that the Philippines is frequently ranked as one of the most gay-friendly nations in Asia. In 2013, the country ranked as number 10 most gay-friendly in a global survey of 39 countries.