Jeff Goldblum’s Gay Older Brother Was Sent to Conversion Therapy

by Sam Manzella

6m ago

Jeff Goldblum is one of Hollywood’s most talked-about daddys, but he recently revealed that his father wasn’t always the most stellar role model.

In a new interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times magazine, the silver-haired Jurassic Park star opened up about his late older brother, Lee, who was gay. Apparently, Goldblum’s father—a medical doctor and World War II vet—wasn’t very accepting when Lee came out to him. He ended up keeping Lee’s sexual orientation a secret from the rest of their family and forcing Lee to undergo conversion therapy.

“He didn’t tell the rest of us [about Lee’s sexuality],” the 67-year-old actor told the magazine. “Sent him to a therapist in order to ‘fix him.’ It was all secret. That’s not so nourishing. My dad was, without knowing why, conspicuously cruel to him at times.”

Goldblum added that Lee suffered from a variety of ailments during his lifetime, including being overweight, abusing pharmaceuticals, and struggling with self-medication.

After a few failed attempts to support himself as an adult, Lee was forced to move back in with the same parents who’d treated him so callously “for the last couple decades of his life.” He passed away in 2000.

In the United States, it is currently illegal for licensed health care practitioners to provide conversion therapy to LGBTQ minors in 18 states and the District of Columbia. But the debunked practice still persists. Back in 2018, a report from the Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that more than 57,000 queer teens in America will be subjected to conversion therapy from “clergy, religious counselors, or other unlicensed persons” before they turn 18.

As NewNowNext previously reported, conversion therapy has long been linked to potentially fatal consequences for survivors, including increased risks of depression, PTSD, and suicide attempts.