Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp comes out as gay

Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp has come out as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

In a short video posted to his TikTok account, the 18-year-old actor wore a grey hoodie and lay on his bed as he revealed to fans that he is ready to share that he is gay.

“When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was ‘we know’,” he wrote over the video.

Referencing his character Will Byers from the popular Netflix show Stranger Things – who Schnapp recently revealed is gay during an interview with Variety – the star captioned the video, “I guess I’m more similar to Will Byers than I thought!”

Mimicking the sound playing in the video, Schnapp says, “You know it never was that serious, it was never that serious, quite frankly we will never be that serious.”

Noah Schnapp has come out as gay in a video posted to TikTok. Photo / Getty Images

The video has since gained more than 10 million views and 2.4 million likes with over 100,000 fans flocking to the comment section to express both their joy he had come out and well wishes.

One said, “it was quite obvious fr” while another said, “congratulations”.

A third commented, “the way I screamed like I didn’t know.”

It comes after the recent release of season four of Stranger Things in which the star’s character starts to realise he is in love with his best friend Mike Wheeler played by Finn Wolfhard.

Speaking to Variety after the release of the season, Schnapp said, “Obviously, it was hinted at in Season 1: It was always kind of there, but you never really knew, is it just him growing up slower than his friends? Now that he’s gotten older, they made it a very real, obvious thing.

“Now it’s 100 per cent clear that he is gay and he does love Mike. But before, it was a slow arc.”

Stranger Things. Season 2. Supplied by Netflix.

The young actor went on to say the way his character was not “all of a sudden” gay and slowly came to terms with his feelings was done “beautifully”, and he believed it was a storyline that many viewers would see their pasts reflected in his character.

“They are writing this real character and this real journey and real struggle, and they’re doing it so well,” he said.

Schnapp was 11 years old when he started portraying the popular character in the record-breaking Netflix show and despite shooting to worldwide fame practically overnight, the star continues to live a normal life having just started his first year at the University of Pennsylvania.