Former Disney star Matthew Scott Montgomery is speaking his truth.
Montgomery detailed his traumatic experience with gay conversion therapy after he revealed his sexuality to his parents.
“My mom collapsed sobbing when she found out,” he shared on the “Vulnerable” podcast. “My parents were really upset, and they left town. My dad hit me up like the next day and he’s like, ‘We feel like we don’t know you. We’re going to come back in town, and we want you to introduce yourself to us.’”
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Matthew Scott Montgomery is opening up about his traumatic experience during his rise as a Disney star, as he went through conversion and electroshock therapy. (Getty Images)
Montgomery, 34, explained that being raised in North Carolina, his parents were “very, very conservative” and had traditional standards for their son.
“How I grew up is, you find what sport you’re good at, you get a scholarship for that,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, you get a scholarship for grades, go to college, find a woman to get married [to], and then get a house. That was the only option that I was told or saw. Which sounds like my first nightmare. No offense to anybody.”
As a rising Disney star, Montgomery added that his guilty conscience kicked in, and he didn’t want to disappoint his parents.
He secretly attended gay conversion therapy on his days off and confessed he “should be punished” for his sexuality.
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The 34-year-old explained that his parents were “very, very conservative” and had traditional standards for him. (Getty Images)
“You have to understand that in the environment that I grew up in, you’re taught that you deserve to be punished all the time,” he explained. “At the time, the career stuff was going so well that I was still in this broken prison brain of thinking, ‘I’m on red carpets. I’m on TV every week. This is too good, I should be punished on my days off.'”
According to the American Medical Association, conversion therapy “refers to any form of intervention, such as individual or group, behavioral, cognitive, or milieu/environmental operations, that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or sexual behaviors or an individual’s gender identity.”
The “So Random!” star pointed out that Disney Channel “had nothing to do” with his decision, and he admitted he sought therapy due to his parents’ reaction.
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Matthew Scott Montgomery starred in Disney Channel’s “So Random!” (Getty Images)
Montgomery went on to detail his harrowing experience with conversion therapy, which included electroshock therapy and hypnosis.
“I would have these silver rods that I would have to hold in my hands, and they’re really kind of like covert and tricky about how they got you to do it because they were like, ‘We’re going to try something a little bit different,'” Montgomery explained on the podcast.
He shared that for three hours a week, he participated in activities including filling out worksheets to express how he felt about other men and apologized to his father for being “a sensitive, artistic little boy.”
Montgomery described the experience as “painful,” especially the electroshock therapy.
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Matthew Scott Montgomery described his experience with electroshock therapy as “painful.” (Getty Images)
The former Disney star eventually came to the realization that “there’s nothing wrong with me” and that he didn’t need to continue with the conversion therapy. At the time, he was working on a play that mirrored his own life.
“I think that was the therapy I actually needed because I got the experience of what it was like to have a family not only love me but celebrate me and really accept me,” he explained.
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The “Shake It Up” star pointed out that he still experiences some “side effects” from the conversion shock therapy, and wanted to share his story in case others were going through the same situation.