Coming Out At 25 Brave Jono's Inner Torment

The Reality Star Shares His Struggle

Groom Jonathan Trenberth is proudly gay on Married at First Sight, but up until six years ago it was a secret he kept tightly to himself.

“I used to have all these tools and techniques just to get through a day hiding my sexuality,” the 31-year-old recalls, but he admits that doing so sent him into a downward spiral.

Auckland-based Jono explains that the self-deception came at a cost. “At some point it means your month has been really bad, and then your week has been really bad, and then your day and then every minute is really bad – and it messes you up.”

Born in Tauranga and raised in Christchurch, Jono’s early years were happy, but when he reached intermediate school he began getting bullied, with things becoming much worse at his all-boys’ high school.

“When you’re a boy growing up, the worst thing you can say – the biggest insult – is to attack someone’s sexuality. You call him gay, you call him homo,” the marketing and communications manager believes from his experience.“I was getting beaten up, I was getting harassed by people and I wasn’t sure what it was, because I was playing sport and I didn’t think I was gay at all.”

Describing himself as a masculine teen, he also loved cooking and would braid his two little sisters’ hair before school each morning.