Chris Appleton Opens Up About Coming Out at 26 and His Bond with ‘Supportive’ Ex Katie Katon (Exclusive)

Chris Appleton is opening up about his “incredibly difficult” coming-out journey.

On the Thursday, Nov. 14, episode of Bethenny Frankel’s podcast Just B, the celebrity hairstylist reflects on coming out as gay at age 26, when he was raising two young children with his ex-partner, Katie Katon.

“I think coming out later on in life … was incredibly difficult because I had two kids,” he told Frankel, 54. “I had a partner I’d been with for, like, 9 years, I thought I had it all figured out. Everyone else also thought I had it figured out.”

Per Bustle, Appleton got his start working in hair salons in his hometown of Leicester, England, when he was 13, which is where he met Katon. They share two children, son Billy, 21, and daughter Kitty-Blu, 20.

“I was bullied quite a bit at school because people used to say I was gay because I did hair,” the stylist, whose client roster includes Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez, recalled to Frankel. “Hair was the first time I felt good at something. I was dyslexic, so I didn’t fit into the group.”

Despite the difficulty of coming out, Appleton says Katon was “incredibly supportive” and that they still have a close relationship. After recently rediscovering and posting a video of his first-ever photo shoot, the stylist says he unexpectedly got emotional, prompting him to call Katon.

“She was like, ‘Why are you emotional?'” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know, I just remember him, I remember that guy. I was straight, I had two kids, I thought I had it all figured out.’ And she’s like, ‘You know, it was really hard because I think you had to mourn a part of someone that you had to let go.'”

He added, “She was incredibly supportive.”

Appleton, who remembers being “told as a kid that [being] gay was wrong,” also reflected on making the choice to embrace his true self.

“There’s so much power in living authentically and being authentically yourself,” he said. “Once I let go of the guilt and the shame of it all, my whole life changed.”

Appleton’s interview on Just B with Bethenny Frankel airs on Thursday, Nov. 14.