Stephen Colbert, outspoken comedian and host of the satirically conservative program “The Colbert Report,” made a rare decision to drop character last week and release a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign on behalf of LGBT youth.
ABC News reports that Colbert, who usually maintains his “Colbert Report” attitude in the public eye, showed a different demeanor Wednesday when he chose instead to speak honestly about his experience with bullying as a teenager.
“I was called queer a lot,” the comedian explains in the video, adding that the word was a popular “weapon” among schoolyard bullies. However, Colbert also recounts the experience of a friend who reclaimed the term — disempowering the bully and proving that, as he says in the video, “the things people say about you don’t really matter.”
In the end, Colbert assures teens, “it gets better” – “and people get nicer, too.”
Watch Stephen Colbert’s “It Gets Better” video below.
