Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Stuart Bailey was born on 25 April 1988 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, the son of a mother who worked as an audiologist and a father who was a managing director for Rowse Honey. He grew up in nearby Benson and Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, and has three older sisters. He described his upbringing as a "co-operative of four brilliant women and a dad who has an incredible work ethic". He decided that he wanted to be an actor at the age of five after his grandmother took him to see a production of Oliver! in London. His first ever appearance on stage was in a primary school production of Noah's Ark, playing a raindrop. Bailey attended the local Church of England-affiliated Benson Primary School, then The Oratory School while taking ballet lessons. He later had a music scholarship to Magdalen College School, Oxford, where he played the piano and clarinet. After securing a talent agent at 15 years old and booking acting roles, he eventually declined his university acceptance offer and opted not to go to drama school, later saying that this kept him grounded in the performing arts: "I've never gone in as the overdog, and that's liberating and I don't want that to ever change. I just want to allow my own experiences to come through." Bailey said he realized he was gay when he was 11 years old. [Jonathan Bailey: 'Fellow Travelers is the gayest show I could find'] However, he didn’t have any gay people around him, the media only portrayed gay people negatively, and no one told him that it was okay to be gay, which delayed his confidence to come out. [Jonathan Bailey: 'Fellow Travelers is the gayest show I could find'] He also shared that when he was 11, he asked his friends at the all-boys school he attended, “Does anyone think they’re gay?” Three years later, he was outed. From that point, the school became a dangerous place for him. Bailey also mentioned that he learned ballet from a young age, but had to quit because ballet was too easy a way to reveal that he is gay. [Jonathan Bailey | Because Bravery Moves So Damned Well Across The Floor] Reflecting on his school years while making a cameo in *Heartstopper* Season 3, Bailey spoke about his experiences as a gay teenager. “But the main one was the excitement, which takes me back to that joy, emotion, and magic of falling in love as a gay teenager. A special and scary time when I didn’t have the words or the courage to express what I was feeling.” [Para Jonathan Bailey, ‘Heartstopper’ gera impacto positivo em jovens LGBT+]