Former Child Star Uses Music To Highlight The Harm Of Homophobia And Offer Hope

Blake McIver is perhaps best known for being a child star who played the role of Derek on Full House and voiced the character of Eugene on the animated series Hey Arnold! However, besides his work in the television industry, the former child star has branched out into music. He’s also openly gay, and is hoping to use music to tell the world just how hurtful homophobia is, while drawing from personal experiences in hopes of being encouraging to others who are receiving hatred from peers.

You might be under the impression a child star like McIver wouldn’t have to worry about being teased by bullies, but that wasn’t true for the now 29-year-old man. In a song titled It Gets Better, the singer boldly opens up and relies on song to chronicle some of his past challenges associated with attending a private Baptist high school in Los Angeles. Although he might have been a star on screen sometimes, during that time in his life, McIver was also a child being tormented because of his sexual orientation.

In an interview published on ContactMusic, the singer who was once a child star explained, “The bullying and ostracism from just an assumption that I was possibly gay was debilitating. I knew I was gay and I was trying desperately to hide it from everyone.” He also talked about an issue that may be familiar to many people: Having a desire to say something that could help others in similar situations, and feeling that music was a better method than using spoken words. He admitted, “I wanted to say something but it was too close, too personal, so I sat down and the piano and wrote a song about it.”

Doing so allowed the star to turn his own negative experiences into something positive for people who are questioning their sexuality, or perhaps ready to come out of the closet, but feeling uncertain about how to do it.

The former child star opened up even further by openly discussing how the verbal and physical assaults he suffered were so severe that they caused him to break down and cry after reaching the more secure space of his mother’s car.

Although the piece of music was written by the star quite a while ago, it has recently begun getting a lot of traction by news sites. A description about the song that the former child star wrote to accompany the YouTube video of the piece explains how he wrote it for anyone who was made to feel “less than” by other members of society.

Blake McIver was once a child star, but now he’s proving to be multi-talented and capable of creating music for a very worthy cause.