[Image: http://mit.zenfs.com/5/2010/10/AP10100318806.jpg]
"Project Runway" star Tim Gunn is the latest celebrity to release a powerful video urging gay teens not to take their own lives. He reveals his own suicide attempt as a young man.
"As a 17-year-old youth who was in quite a bit of despair, I attempted to kill myself. And I'm very happy today that attempt was unsuccessful, but at the time it was all I could contemplate," he says.
"When I woke up the next morning after taking more than 100 pills, I was in a whole other level of despair. I thought, 'I shouldn't be here, this isn't what was meant to be.' I frankly just wanted to start life all over again."
Gunn says it took "a serious intervention to help me," and he urges teens considering suicide to reach out and get help.
Gunn released the video as part of writer and gay activist Dan Savage's project, called "It Gets Better," which features adults and teens telling bullied kids that their lives will improve. In the video, Gunn urges teens who need help to call the Trevor Project, a hotline for gay teens contemplating suicide.
Savage started the project in late September after two gay 15-year-olds committed suicide. The recent suicide of Rutgers teen Tyler Clementi drew national attention to the issue. Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after his college roommate allegedly broadcast online his romantic encounter with a man.
"The point of the videos is to give despairing kids in impossible situations a little thing called hope. The point is to let them know that things do get better," Savage said on his blog.
Since then, a slew of public figures have spoken out against anti-gay bullying in an attempt to raise awareness about the high suicide rate among gay teens.
You can watch Gunn's video below:
[video=youtube;9GGAgtq_rQc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GGAgtq_rQc[/video]
The popular musical Fox show "Glee" will devote an entire episode to the issue, according to the show's stars. Chris Colfer, who plays a gay teen on the show, has also released a video for the project urging teens not to take "drastic action."
The musician Ke$ha released a video Wednesday in the series as well. "To anyone who's being bothered or abused or harassed or bullied, I just want to tell you that it will get better," she says. "No matter if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender -- however you are choosing to live is beautiful, and you have my full support and all of my love."
[video=youtube;DV4EmSviDfQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV4EmSviDfQ&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Other people who have joined the initiative include musician Jason Derulo and comedian Sarah Silverman, who released a video claiming kids are learning from the government that gay people are second-class citizens. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres called on everyone to stop anti-gay bullying last week on her show.
Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black echoed Silverman's point in an interview with a Hollywood blogger , stressing cultural costs of lawmakers' inaction on issues such as same-sex marriage and openly gay military service. "Time and again the U.S. government is saying gay and lesbian people are less than, are second-class citizens," he said. "And what do they expect young children to take from that? They take a message that it's OK to treat these kids as less than."
And when rapper 50 Cent wrote on Twitter a statement that was interpreted as suggesting gay men should commit suicide, a public backlash ensued. He subsequently issued a clarification. "I have nothing against people who choose [an] alternative lifestyle in fact I've publicly stated my mom loved women," he wrote.
Gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who famously stirred up debate on the gay-marriage question when he served as a judge for the 2009 Miss California beauty pageant, is actively soliciting videos from more celebrities for the project, Perez staffer Lauren Jones tells The Upshot.
Savage, meanwhile, is also seeking to mobilize public support for the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which "builds on existing protections for students based on their race, color, sex, religion, disability or national origin, and will provide LGBT students and their families with legal recourse against discriminatory treatment," according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The family of a 15-year-old Minnesota teen who hanged himself after enduring taunts and bullying about being gay wants the district to change its policy of not allowing teachers to discuss sexuality.
Gay and lesbian teens are four times more likely than other teens to commit suicide, and 9 out of 10 report being bullied, according to recent studies cited by CBS News. Parental tolerance for their sexuality tends to reduce the suicide risk, one recent study suggests.
"It gets better. Don't ever give up."