Ryan O'Connell

Have you ever wondered how so many people are filled with talents? Especially people involved in the entertainment industry are people filled with multiple talents. It might be the place to find multifaceted people as they experiment their skills and constantly try new things. And today we shall talk about such a multi-talented person Ryan O’Connell.

Ryan O’Connell is a multi-talented actor, writer, director, comedian, LGBTQ activist, and disability advocate who is good in every sector he chooses to take part in and is a very fascinating as well as inspiring person to each one of us.

How Old Is Ryan O’Connell?

Ryan O’Connell age is now 35 years old, he was born on 2nd September 1986; he was born and raised in Ventura Country, California with his liberal family. Growing up he often fought with health issues and had a mild form of Cerebral Palsy since birth, which had affected the right side of his body with a noticeable limp.

Because of suffering from CP, he had to go through eleven-twelve surgeries when he was a child, he used to spend most of the time in the hospital and also received much physical therapy. He learned about his writing skills when he used to request TV scripts for Christmas and watched shows with close captioning. He would watch the shows and attempt to figure out about A-plot and B-plot and the structure of the script.

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He is an American by his nationality and his zodiac sign is Virgo and he follows Christianity as his religion. Growing up he always loved to perform and act.

From Where Did Ryan O’Connell Graduate?

According to the wiki, Ryan attended The New School (BA) in New York City after his car accident and always liked to perform and act in his middle school and high school but shortly on, he suppressed his feelings and saw himself as not fitting in the popular culture and then he attended Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, CA, USA.

When Did Ryan O’Connell Start His Career?

Ryan started his career when he first worked as a blogger for three years back in 2011 and first served as editor of Thought Catalog he has also contributed to Vice, Buzz feed, and other publications including The New York Times and Medium.

At the age of twenty-five, some of his writing went viral and was offered a book deal from Simon & Schuster. At that time he kept his disability private but later on, he came out with a column for a thought catalogue called ‘Coming out of the Disabled Closet’ about hiding his disability with a car accident which article was later published as a book and he publicly revealed his disability to the world.

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At the age of 27, he then moved to LA to start his television writing career with MTV’s Awkward. And just in the second season of The Awkward back in 2015, another book was published called ‘I’m Special: And other lies we tell ourselves and in 2015 he was noticed by Jim Parson, but Ryan was assured with the Parson’s and Spiewak; he felt he could not trust a network with the gay content, fearing that they would let the project die after buying the option. Ryan was also named one of the most Out 100 honouring LGBTQ icons back in 2015.

Hence, back in 2016, he received a go-ahead from stage 13 to develop a script for a special based on his memoir, with eight-fifteen minutes for Netflix. It was written on weekends and he was writing full-time. and later that year he completed the script but had obstacles getting it produced because of the disability angle. And he also explained all the difficulties with the gay leads and is disabled and he also said ‘I think Hollywood is largely not interested in disabled people because they don’t view us as ‘Sexy’ or ‘Cool’.

Back in 2019 when he did the TV show ‘Special’ he mislead his co-workers as his limp was because of the car accident rather than his cerebral palsy and the show is largely based on Ryan’s life. And in ‘digital spy’ he took the role himself because of budget constraints and he set out the depict onscreen sex in an authentic sex scene between two men, it was probably the first ever TV show to tackle gay, disabled sex with authenticity while destigmatizing sex work at the same time.

Back in 2017, he wrote for a season of ‘Daytime Divas’, and then he worked as an executive story editor in the same year of Will & Grace; he was also the co-host of the podcast ‘Babe’ with the iconic Lara Marie Schoenhals. He was also honoured with the HRC Visibility Award by the Human Rights Campaign at the 2019 HRV Atlanta Gala Dinner.

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He was also nominated for four 71st Primetime Emmy Awards in September: Outstanding Actor in short form comedy or drama series. It was also mentioned Ryan will be mentoring prospective producers in Australia to make short-form projects for SBS on Demand. And recently, in 2022, Ryan gave his debut as a novel author with his work just by looking at him which was also published by Simon & Schuster in New York. He has also acted and co-produced the series Queer as Folk’ which was released recently and he has also co-written two episodes that have been released through Netflix recently.

How Did Ryan O’Connell Discover About His Sexuality?

Ryan O’Connell remained closeted about his sexuality until he turned seventeen and felt like he needed to come out of the closet to pursue another boy who had already come out. His family was very supportive of his coming out; his sister, uncle, and grandfather had already identified as LGBTQ.

During an Interview with Vulture Magazine, when Ryan was asked when he realized he was gay, he revealed that he opened up at the age of 17.

He said, 

Honestly, watching 90210 at 12 years old. Jason Priestley. I swear to God, 90210 was so formative. I remember watching an episode of 90210 where Jason’s in the hot tub with Tiffani Amber Thiessen, and I remember feeling some kind of way. But that was more of a gray attraction. The moment I realized I was gay was, truly, Ryan Phillippe’s ass in Cruel Intentions. I remember seeing Ryan Phillippe’s ass and being like, “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” And then being, like, “Oh, fuck me. I’m gay and disabled, this is so rude.”

Ryan further added, 

I was closeted until I was 17. I came out because I really liked this boy who I knew was gay, and I knew that in order to pursue him, I needed to be out of the closet. And also, I was just tired of it. I came from a very gay family. My grandfather was a closeted homosexual who died of AIDS. My uncle’s gay. My sister’s bi.

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When Ryan was 20 years old, he was hit by a car which required four hand surgeries and resulted in Compartment Syndrome. His left hand was mostly affected by the accident. Nine months later he moved to New York to attend the new school and their people assumed his limps were from the car accident and he choose not to correct them, he has often described his feeling in limbo about his cp and not really fitting in with disabled and non-disabled people. In addition, disabled presentation in popular culture was nearly non-existent.

Is Ryan O’Connell Dating Someone?

Yes, Ryan has been dating Jonathan Parks-Ramage since 2015 and it is reported that the couple met back at Grimes's Birthday party in LA. Jonathan Parks Ramage is also a writer by his profession and he has widely published in such outlets as Vice, slate, out, Atlas Obscura, Broadly, and Elle. He is an alumnus of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. And his debut book is ‘Yes Daddy’. They both live in LA together. Ryan is yet to get married to his partner and have kids and we hope to see both of them getting married and having children.

What Is The Total Net Worth Of Ryan O’Connell?

Ryan O’Connell has been engaged in multiple works which include acting, writing, directing, and comedy pacifies his salary is pretty good to support him and live a wealthy life. And acting and writing being his main occupation and main source of his income his estimated amount of net worth is said to be $3.2 million approximately.

How Tall Is Ryan O’Connell?

Ryan O’Connell is a handsome actor, writer, creator and so much more even to explain. His height is 5ft 9 inches (1.68m), his weight is 55kg, his eyes are black, his hair is also black, and his shoe size is 10 (US).

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