Fresh from his first Tony nom, Jesse Williams is trending after nude images and video of the star in Broadway’s Take Me Out began circulating.
Williams plays a successful gay baseball player who faces personal and professional repercussions after coming out at his career’s peak. The Grey’s Anatomy alum is nude at some point during the show, which Williams said “terrified” him at first.
He told Page Six,
But then I noted that that was what I asked God for.
I asked to be terrified. I asked to do something that was scary and challenging and made me earn it and made me feel alive and not comfortable.”
To protect Williams and the play’s other nude actors from prying audience members, Second Stage’s Hayes Theater requires all ticket holders to place their phones in sealed Yondr cases before the show.
According to the theater’s website, guests can hold on to their devices as long as they remain locked
out of respect and support for our actors and in order to create a phone-free space.”
Williams recently spoke about the nudity during a Monday appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, which was reportedly filmed prior to the leak. When asked about the audience reaction to his nudity, Williams said,
A non-reaction is a really interesting reaction.
The quiet, you know. Creates a lot of insecurity. I don’t like any of it. I’ve learned in my minutes in theater, which is all a first for me, is don’t try to read into it because it just creates more insecurity.”
Williams also told Cohen that he
won’t be scared of anything after this [experience], that’s for sure.”
Well, they’re censored here and all over the internet. You know how to Google –& one assumes you are over 21. Stop clutching your pearls, gurl.
Me seeing Jessie Williams trending thinking he’s coming back to Grey’s Anatomy, but instead… pic.twitter.com/M4F6mrI7ej
— ✰ 🌑🌕 ✰ (@TheonlyArantxa) May 10, 2022
Why is a Jessie Williams naked on my timeline pic.twitter.com/lJaLTAisee
— Lover Not A Fighter (@Druske) May 10, 2022
Me after I realized I’ve been looking at that Jessie Williams video too long… pic.twitter.com/db7vsom6ra
— Lola Bunny (@_ayeeekris) May 10, 2022
I wonder why Jessie Williams is tre- pic.twitter.com/bBwXwjwEcQ
— 🤓💙〽️ (@901living) May 10, 2022
(via Vanity Fair)
