While appearing on Monday’s episode of the “Frosted Tips With Lance Bass” podcast, the “Beverly Hills, 90210” star opened up about parenting his eldest son, Kassius Lijah Marcil-Green. Green said the experience had illuminated the ways in which being gay isn’t really as different as he’d once imagined.
The NSYNC star was the first to broach the subject, telling Green he must be the “coolest dad ever,” adding that 21-year-old Kassius “was so lucky” to be in Green’s family because “so many kids out there don’t get that.” Bass himself came out as gay in 2006, telling People at the time that he’d waited to share that part of himself publicly: “I knew that I was in this popular band and I had four other guys’ careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said [that I was gay], it would overpower everything.”
During Monday’s episode, Bass added that he’d known he was gay since he was 5 years old. “Most of my friends say the same thing: ‘My first memory is being gay.’ So you know it’s weird that people still can’t accept that you’re just born that way.” Bass then pointed out that, even if parents accept their LGBTQ+ children, there are often instances where “the kid knows that they still disagree with it.”
Green remarked that parenting his son had been fascinating, and that although it’d been a challenge, he said that was only because it was unknown territory. “I think a lot of people are afraid of the unknown, whereas I’m not.
“It’s intriguing, and I want to learn about it,” Green added.”I would get into these conversations with Kassius; I really wanted to understand the things that seemed so different to me at first, and then you realize — oh, this isn’t different at all. It’s just your choice of partner.”
Green went on to say his son’s sexual orientation didn’t affect him at all. “And that’s the thing I’m always trying to beat into people now. It does not affect you. Why do you care so much, and why are you trying to somehow bully your feelings and your opinion into something that literally does not affect you at all?”
Bass countered that some parents do feel negatively affected by their child’s sexual orientation and conjectured that “it really is affecting them in a way they don’t want to admit.”
Green shares Kassius with his ex-girlfriend and fellow “90210” star Vanessa Marcil, who played Gina Kincaid on the ’90s teen megahit. He also shares three sons with his ex-wife, Megan Fox, and in June 2022, the actor welcomed his fifth child, Zane Walker, with his fiancée, Sharna Burgess.