Gio Benitez explains why he stayed closeted until he was 24

Gio Benitez finally faced the music—uh, his husband Tommy DiDario—in the Good Morning America Weekend host’s first long-form podcast interview ever.

More than two years after launching his iHeart podcast series, I've Never Said This Before With Tommy DiDario, the time has come for DiDario to grill his own hubby with questions that perhaps he never discussed in public before.

In this exclusive preview shared with Out (which you can watch at the top of this article), DiDario asks Benitez what he would’ve told himself, in his 20s, if. He could time-travel back to that period of his life.

“It’s all going to be OK,” Benitez replied without hesitation. “You think about all the worries you have growing up… You spend so much time in your head thinking about that.”

Benitez recalled how being in the closet was one of the hardest things he had to do throughout his life.

“For me, it was growing up gay and keeping that a secret. It was something I didn’t talk to anyone about until I was 24 years old. You worry, ‘Will that hold me back?’” Benitez mused. “At the time, the message from society kind of was: ’Yeah it would.’”

The GMA Weekend cohost added, “We constantly have to talk to that little kid inside because they are there; they are a part of us. They were there through the most monumental parts of our lives, and they’re still there.”

Gio Benitez’s full-length interview on iHeart’s I’ve Never Said This Before with Tommy DiDario premieres this Tuesday, October 28, on iHeart and all other podcast streaming platforms.