Colton Haynes is happier than ever, but struggled for years at home and in his professional life, before coming out in May.

An actor and social media star (he has 4.8 million followers on Instagram), Haynes grew up in a small Kansas town with a population fewer than 1000. After coming out to his family at age 14, – much to the dismay of his mother, who, he says, was “blindsided” by the announcement – Haynes rebelled by experimenting with sex and drugs, running away for three weeks and bunking in a friend’s closet. While he was staying with friends, a relative called to inform him that his father had killed himself by taking over 40 oxycodone pills.

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“I’m the last person in the world who would say, ‘Oh, my dad – pity me.’ But I was told that my dad killed himself because he found out I was gay. So, of course, I lost it and was like, ‘How could you say something like that?'” he tells OUT magazine. “No one will ever really know the truth. But my brother and my mom went to pick up my dad’s stuff, and the only picture on his fridge was my eighth-grade graduation picture. So I was just like, ‘F—.'”

Once he moved to Hollywood and landed a role on “Teen Wolf”, Haynes hid his sexuality from the public, worried that it would hurt his career.

“I feel really bad that I had to lie for so long, But I was told that was the only way I was going to be successful. When you’re young in this industry, people take advantage of you, and they literally tell you that your dreams are going to come true,” he tells OUT about his decision to move to Los Angeles at the age of 17. “If you believe that, you’ll do anything. And you do believe it, especially if you’re from Kansas.”

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Currently single, Haynes is optimistic and hopeful about finding love, looking to move forward on a positive note after publicly coming out, citing his ideal man as, “Someone who just descended from a mountain and said, ‘I don’t have any friends. Would you like to come live with me?’ I’d love that,” he says, citing a combination of his celebrity crushes John Cena, Ryan Reynolds, and Idris Elba.

“I want to somehow have a happy ending,” he says. “Or a happy beginning.”

The issue of OUT with Haynes on the cover hits newsstands August 30.