This week, Joey Graziadei and his dad, Nick, made a podcast appearance on Bachelor Happy Hour, where both men opened up quite a bit.
They chatted with Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt about several aspects of life and even discussed just how emotionally mature Joey is.
It turns out there’s a good reason for that.
Nick Graziadei admitted that Joey is probably more emotionally mature than he is, even now.
He credited part of that to Joey, who had grown up with divorced parents. They split at a young age, forcing Joey and his sisters to learn some life lessons younger than most.
When Nick’s sexuality was brought up, we learned even more about him and Joey as they talked about what it was like for Nick to come out as gay to his three young children.
Nick Graziadei on coming out to his kids as a gay man
Joe Amabile carefully asked Nick Graziadei about coming out to Joey and his two sisters, asking him if he was comfortable talking about it first.
It turns out that he was, and Nick was happy to speak on it.
“It was difficult,” Joey’s dad said matter-of-factly. “On top of that, this is what I’ve struggled with, but I think on top of that too… that’s when my ex-wife was diagnosed with MS, so that was a lot too.”
Nick explained that he felt like what he did was “not fair” due to the timing of Cathy’s MS diagnosis and even admitted that he loves his ex-wife “to this day” but that he didn’t think it was fair for his kids to grow up in a home with parents who were staying together for the wrong reasons.
Joey doesn’t remember his dad coming out to him
While Nick Graziadei opened up about coming out to his kids, he asked Joey if he was about 10 years old when he figured it out for himself.
Joey admitted that he doesn’t remember how old he was or his dad telling him.
Instead, he said he remembered his mom talking to him about it.
“I don’t know when I actually fully figured it out, I still try to think back how old I was,” Joey claimed. “I would say I don’t remember that conversation either. I know we were really young. I think it was more mom that told us we were going to see you more on the weekends and then the move happened.”
He continued, “I knew they weren’t together but didn’t necessarily understand why.”
The Bachelor is currently on hiatus on ABC.