‘SNL’ Star Bowen Yang Opens Up About ‘Chasm Of Misunderstanding’ That Led His Parents To Send Him To Gay Conversion Therapy

Bowen Yang has been candid about being forced by his parents to undergo gay conversion therapy when he was a teenager, and the “Saturday Night Live” star is sharing more details about his experience in a new interview with People.

“There was a huge chasm of misunderstanding,” Yang tells the magazine. “Neither side really understood where the other was coming from, and it led to very dangerous situations overall.”

However, Yang insists that “what was always constant was the intention of love from both sides. It pushed me into questioning what it meant, what was protected and what I should be protective about in terms of being a queer person. I don’t take it for granted.”

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Over the years, Yang said that his relationship with his parents has growin to a “healthy place.”

“There has been a nice shift where they go, ‘Great job,’” he says of how they now respond to his fame.

“They’ve just been encouraging in the purest sense. It’s not like I’m getting sketch ideas from them, and they know what the boundaries are,” he said of his parents. “They know that that job has been hard won for me, and that it means a lot, and it means a lot to them too. They think, ‘Wow, he pulled it off.’ And my mom said to me recently, she was like, ‘Bowen you’re very lucky to be doing this.’ And I was like, ‘I know mom.’”