‘Monsters’ star Cooper Koch recalls being told his ‘gay voice’ would hinder his career

One of the hardest things about being queer in Hollywood is everyone telling you how impossible it’ll be to succeed in Hollywood if you’re queer.

Cooper Koch, one of the breakout stars of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, remembered a coach telling him just that. “Is it true an acting teacher told you the reason you weren’t booking roles is because you have a ‘gay voice?'” Andy Cohen asked him on a recent episode of Watch What Happens Live. “Yeah, that’s true,” he responded.

“I was so stunned by it at the time. It was before the class even started, and then I had to go through class. I’ll add more to the story — she then proceeded to tell the entire class the conversation we had, and all the students are looking at me like, ‘Oh my god, aww.'”

Koch playfully shared that he can “flip it on and off,” turning to Cohen’s other guest Finneas O’Connell with a “what’s good bro” and his best hetero handshake. “You’d never know,” O’Connell joked.

The heartthrob du jour shared a more detailed reaction to this experience in 2023 with the Edge Media Network, saying, “I have a thick skin and at this point in my life, I’ve, you know, been through bullying when I was a kid, I’ve been fired from a pilot because of it… But I also don’t tolerate it anymore. I just will turn the other way and walk away. And also, it’s like, yeah, if you’re gonna have that kind of opinion or you’re not gonna wanna work with me because my voice sounds a certain way or because I walk or talk or move my hands in a certain way, then I don’t wanna work with you either, babe.”

Koch remains confident in himself, telling Cohen, “I love my gay voice.” The host and Bravo bigwig replied, “I love your gay voice too.”

Though Koch’s only racked up a handful of roles in feature films and series, he made a big impression as Erik Menéndez on Monsters, and made multiple headlines for his comments on the Clubhouse. He raised eyebrows for clarifying — without prompting — that during his full-frontal nude scene in the series, “mine was not a prosthetic.”

The biggest detractor of the series so far has been Erik Menéndez himself, though he seems to have no qualms with Koch, only Ryan Murphy, the series co-creator and showrunner. “It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent,” Menéndez, currently serving a life sentence, said in a statement shared by his wife, Tammi Menéndez, on social media. “Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.”

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For his part, Murphy suggested that the Menéndez brothers, who were convicted in 1996 for the murder of their parents, “should be sending me flowers. They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years.”

Monsters is currently streaming on Netflix.