Celeb Stylist Chris Appleton Was Dad to Two Before Coming Out at 26

The HuffPost reports that Chris Appleton, 41-year-old celebrity hairstylist who works with the likes of Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez, thought he had it "all figured out" in his early 20s when he and his long-term partner with whom he welcomed two children.

"Speaking on Bethenny Frankel's podcast, "Just B," Appleton explained that while he and the mother of his children never married, they were together for nine years before he realized that he is gay."

Appleton grew up in Leicester, England, the middle child of five siblings. He struggled in school due to dyslexia and was bullied for appearing queer. "The local hair salon, where he started working at around 13 years old, became his refuge," wrote the website Bustle in a profile last year. "There, he met Katie Katon, his former partner, with whom he had his two children: Billy, who was born when Appleton was 19, and Kitty-blu, who followed two years later. (Appleton didn't come out as gay until he was 26.) Appleton says he immersed himself first in being a young, hands-on dad, and then, when his kids were a little older, he started venturing into London for work."

"I was bullied quite a bit at school, and people used to say I was gay because I did hair," Chris went on. "I never was too focused on sexuality, but people at school always mentioned it, and, as a kid, you just don't ever want to be different – I already felt different because I was dyslexic."

"I was, I guess, just determined to prove everyone wrong, but so much that I did myself a disjustice [sic]," he admitted. "It wasn't until I experienced it at 26 that I was also going through it as well as everyone else. The difficult thing is, then you're hurting people around you that you've committed to, and you feel that."

"People feel like they know you, and you feel like you know them, and all of a sudden you're telling a different story which you're trying to figure out," Chris added. "So it was really hard for a few years, it was really difficult."

Bethany praised him for realizing that  "something massive was missing" from his life and deciding to make the "courageous jump" by coming out.

"It sounds cheesy, but there's honestly so much power in living authentically and being authentically yourself," Chris acknowledged. "I think once I let go of all the guilt and shame of it all, my whole life changed. I moved to America, it was amazing how much grew and changed."