--- title: Tim Cook Explains Why He Came Out as Gay description: Apple's CEO stopped by Stephen Colbert's 'The Late Show' on Tuesday, where he also shared his thoughts on the recent movies about Steve Jobs canonical: https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-16T12:06:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:06.636Z og:title: Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Came Out as Gay og:description: Apple's CEO stopped by Stephen Colbert's 'The Late Show' on Tuesday. og:url: https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Came Out as Gay twitter:description: Apple's CEO stopped by Stephen Colbert's 'The Late Show' on Tuesday. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Came Out as Gay > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Late Night Highlight: Apple CEO Tim Cook Discusses 'Jobs' Film [Watch (HLS stream): Late Night Highlight: Apple CEO Tim Cook Discusses 'Jobs' Film](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oF84pPgd.m3u8) (1:02)  _Published 2015-09-16. Apple CEO Tim Cook stopped by the 'Late Show' Tuesday night and shared his thoughts on Steve Jobs and the movies being made about him._  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Sep 16, 2015 12:06 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Sep 16, 2015 12:06 PM UTC Apple CEO Tim Cook says he felt a “tremendous responsibility” to publicly come out as gay. “It became so clear to me that kids were getting bullied in school, kids were getting basically discriminated against, kids were even being disclaimed by their own parents and that I needed to do something,” Cook told Stephen Colbert during a Tuesday _The Late Show_ interview about why he opened up about his sexuality in a [2014 Bloomberg editorial](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-30/tim-cook-speaks-up). Though many of the people he works with already knew he was gay, Cook says, his decision to speak up was inspired by a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” “Where I value my privacy significantly, I felt that I was valuing it too far above what I could do for the people,” Cook said. “I wanted to tell everyone my truth. Many people already know. For many people, it was no revelation. It’s like discovering something on your iPhone it’s always done but you didn’t quite know it.” Cook also told Colbert that he isn’t thrilled about the all movies about his late predecessor, Steve Jobs. First, there was the 2013 film starring Ashton Kutcher, _Jobs_, and now there’s the upcoming _Steve Jobs_, which stars Michael Fassbender and hits theaters Oct. 9\. (This month also saw the release of the documentary _Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine_.) “I love him dearly and I miss him every day,” Cook said. “I think that a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic, and I hate this. It’s not a great part of our world.” Others close to Jobs have given their approval, however, to the Fassbender film, which was directed by Danny Boyle _(Slumdog Millionaire)_ and written by Aaron Sorkin _(The Social Network)_. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said he felt like he was [“actually watching Steve Jobs”](http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/7/9272963/steve-jobs-movie-wozniak-likes-sorkin-boyle-fassbender) and thanked the filmmakers for “getting it so right.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/"},"headline":"Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Came Out as Gay","datePublished":"2015-09-16T12:06:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:06.636Z","description":"Apple's CEO stopped by Stephen Colbert's The Late Show on Tuesday","url":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","Steve Jobs","Tim cook","stephen colbert","the late show"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/","name":"Watch Tim Cook Explain Why He Came Out as Gay"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Late Night Highlight: Apple CEO Tim Cook Discusses 'Jobs' Film","description":"Apple CEO Tim Cook stopped by the 'Late Show' Tuesday night and shared his thoughts on Steve Jobs and the movies being made about him.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oF84pPgd/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-09-16T09:58:27.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oF84pPgd.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/","duration":"PT1M2S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4036006/tim-cook-coming-out-gay/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```