NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- For Michael James Scott, who plays the Genie in the Disney production of "Aladdin" on Broadway, coming out to his father wasn't dramatic -- and that's something, he joked, he was miffed about, because as a theatrical kind of guy, drama is his middle name.
"It was so anti-climactic," Scott said of coming out to his dad, at Thursday's Audacy Pride Month Town Hall. "We were at a TGI Friday's, of course -- which is where everything happens for some reason -- and I said to my dad, 'so I have a boyfriend and I would love for you to meet him.' I said, 'how do you feel about that?' And he was like, 'well, are you happy?' And I was like -- and it threw me off so hardcore -- that I was like, 'yeah' And he said, 'well then that's all I care about.'
Scott, who moved at age 6 with his parents and brother from Baltimore to Orlando, joked, "I wanted drama. I'm like, I wanted a full back and forth ... And it wasn't that at all. It was just so simple and beautiful. And that is coming from a Black man, a straight Black man who grew up in inner city, Baltimore streets. And for him to just sort of say it like that, it blew me away. It just blew me away. And that was it."
Scott ended up marrying the aforementioned boyfriend, filmmaker Jeremy Merrifield, in November 2019 in California wine country. The pair -- whom he actually met in theater camp in Tampa years before -- had been together for ten years prior to marrying and had reunited some years after attending camp together, although they were still connected through mutual friends and theater circles.
Scott's mother -- who would buy Scott Victoria's Secret lotion for him when he was a child, a nod to how he did not follow conventional "masculine" norms -- had a different reaction than his father, however, he told the audience gathered at the town hall of the corporate parent of 1010 WINS, WCBS 880, WFAN, WCBS-FM, Los Angeles' KROQ and more than 200 hundred other stations across the U.S.
"My mom, who bought me Victoria's Secret lotion, was bothered by it more [than my father]," he said. "I don't think it really manifested for her until it was real, that her son was going to be with another man."
Scott added, "She is a church woman. So I don't think it was as easy for her as I thought in my head, as it was going to be. So I had to just basically say, 'this is what it is and you have to come along for the ride or else this is what it is' ... I I think my dad was actually someone who helped make it easier for my mom."
While Scott admits he was always theatrical, he said he was truly bitten by the Broadway bug at age 13 during a trip to New York City, when his drama class saw a production of "Beauty and the Beast." (He said his church took up a collection to fund his trip).
"I was sitting there in the orchestra, seeing my first Broadway show and during 'Be Our Guest,' and among all the dancing silverware, there was this Black man in the ensemble who was a spoon. And I thought, 'oh my God, I could be the spoon,'" he said.
He explained, "And literally, it changed my whole trajectory of my life, because I saw representation. Representation matters because it's a physical manifestation of your dream when you actually see it front of you."
So what does Scott -- whose decade-long journey as "Aladdin"'s Genie has taken him from Australia to London's West End to Broadway -- have to say to the Black 13-year-old boy who is sitting in the orchestra at one of the "Aladdin" performances today wondering where he fits in?
"I say to that boy, the thing that you think is different about you, is the thing that's going to one day make you the Genie in 'Aladdin' on Broadway and around the world. So keep being different."