Have I ever been the shy retiring type? Never. Not since the day I was born.

I do tend to eat healthily most of the time, but I don't restrict myself. I believe in eating anything and everything in moderation and doing some exercise.

You can be in the public eye all the time and still have a private life, but the important thing is to keep in touch with the people who put you there.

Many things shaped my identity as a young boy: a strong selfworth (something that was instilled in all three Barrowman siblings by our parents), my immersion in theatre and music, and my DNA. I was born gay. It's not a choice I – or anyone else who is gay – made. If it were, why on earth would anyone choose to be part of a minority, part of a group that in so many cultures and countries, even in the twenty-first century, is regularly blasphemed, hounded and worse?

Never apologize for being nerdy.

If you do something and it goes wrong, you learn from it and you move on.

I live my life openly and freely every day anyway, and do what I want to do, but I don't take any great risks.