‘A living hell': X-Men star on growing up gay in Opus Dei

Hundreds of photographers and entertainment news reporters lined the red carpet stretching out before me. Thousands of fans filled the streets, screaming out for a glimpse of their favourite movie stars. I was blinded by the flashing lights and deafened by the screaming crowd.
It was April 28, 2009 and I was 23 years old. Just a few days earlier, I had clocked out of my last ever shift selling movie tickets at a cinema multiplex in Sydney, packed my bags and headed to Hollywood to see myself on the big screen for the very first time. It was the premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film in which I played a popular superhero called Scott Summers, better known as Cyclops. Yes, the guy who shoots laser beams out of his eyes. C'est moi.
However, my feeling of accomplishment that night was overshadowed by a crippling self-doubt. I look back at the photos and cringe-inducing interviews from the red carpet, and all I see is a lost little deer in the headlights. I was a fish out of water and, despite trying to fake it till I made it, I was an impostor.
The truth was that, behind the scenes, the Tim Pocock who attended that glitzy event was consumed by a deep self-loathing that had persisted for more than a decade. I had a dark, soul-crushing secret that consumed my every thought and filled me with such profound shame that I hid my true self from literally everyone. I carried the guilt of someone who had committed a heinous crime, like murder, and lived under the constant torment of what my deserved punishment would be. Yet I was no murderer. What I was, in fact, was gay.
Internalised homophobia is a very real and dangerous thing. The kid who attended that premiere – and went on to star in the series Dance Academy – was haunted by the reality of who he was, and the success of that moment wasn't enough to overcome the decades of conditioning and programming that had robbed him of the self-confidence he deserved. The claustrophobic pressures of my religious family, and the constant monitoring and manipulation I faced during my education at the hands of Opus Dei, had left me completely unprepared for the real world, unable to be myself and, most importantly, ashamed of who I was.
God's work
Our unscheduled return to Australia from Ireland when I was seven was the start of the bad times. My family had moved there when I was four, and staying there may not have afforded me the same opportunities that took me to the career I feel so much fulfilment from. But one thing I know for sure is that this decision would lead to me being enrolled in a school in Sydney called Redfield College and introduced me to the world of a secretive sect within the Catholic Church called Opus Dei. I would spend the next 10 years there as a pupil in what can only be described as complete misery.
Mum secured a teaching job in Sydney at the same school my sister had started attending: Tangara School for Girls. Tangara and its brother school, Redfield College, were relatively new institutions that had been set up in the late 1980s by an organisation called Pared, a term that stands for 'Parents for Education'. The founding families were people my parents had grown up and gone to school with. They rejected the modernisation of the Catholic school system and wanted to have more control over the curriculum being taught to their kids.
These schools were based on the principles of Opus Dei and followed the directives of its founder, Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá. Known for its secrecy, Opus Dei is considered even by most practising Catholics as extremely conservative in its ideals and teachings.
Though Mum was not a member of Opus Dei, the values it represented were exactly in line with what she wanted for us as kids. She had been reluctant to send me to the Catholic school I was attending. She didn't like that it was co-educational because she believed that boys and girls were far too distracting for each other and should be separated, and she viewed the school itself as being too 'trendy' (modern) in its teachings. Mum pulled some strings with Pared and managed to get me placed in Redfield College midway through second grade. It was another upheaval, another loss of new friendships, and I felt constantly buffeted around like a human pinball.
We soon moved to our own place in north-west Sydney's Hills District to be closer to the schools she approved of, but at least some sense of normality was finally restored. However, as I would find out, Redfield College would end up being the worst change of them all.
The Redfield College website does mention that the inspiration behind the school is Opus Dei and its founder, Josemaría Escrivá – though it takes some digging. It states that the school chaplains are Opus Dei, but that 'in all other aspects, the schools are the responsibilities of the Board of Pared or their own administrations'. As a student there from age seven to 18, I can tell you categorically that Opus Dei's influence was all-encompassing.
Opus Dei translates from the Latin to 'Work of God' and is referred to by its members as 'The Work'. Members of Opus Dei mostly fit into one of two categories: numeraries and supernumeraries. Numeraries are men and women who take a vow of celibacy and devote much of their lives to the organisation, although they are neither priests nor nuns. They sometimes adopt methods of religious corporal punishment, like sleeping on wooden boards and wearing barbed metal thigh belts, called cilices, to cause irritation – all discomforts that they offer up in sacrifice to God.
Confession was part of our religion periods, with each child being sent off one by one to make their reconciliation.
Supernumeraries are members of Opus Dei who still dedicate their lives to the directives of Escrivá but do so as non-celibate members. Their vocation is to be parents, and to bring into this world more children who uphold the values and teachings of Opus Dei. The rest are known as cooperative members, meaning that they aren't members of Opus Dei but still subscribe to their ideals and methodologies and, as such, attend spiritual formation sessions known as 'circles'. My parents would often attend these circles.
The religious education was constant, from the start of the school day till its end. We would begin each school day by lining up on the basketball court in military formation in our class grades. A teacher on a megaphone would shout out militaristic instructions: 'Attention!' 'At ease!' We would then recite a morning prayer. This would often be in Spanish, as Spain was the birthplace of Opus Dei. Mass was offered daily and each grade would attend once a week, with students free to be present more often if they wished.
Confession was part of our religion periods, with each child being sent off one by one to make their reconciliation. The Opus Dei chaplain would know which class group was coming for confession and, even though we'd be sitting behind the privacy screen, he would spend the time trying to glean information so that he could identify us. With the illusion of anonymity shattered, the priest would then be able to refer to our past conversations and confessions and provide me with spiritual direction that was bespoke to my own journey. As a younger child, I found it embarrassing enough when my gravest sin was a typical sibling fight, but as I grew older and the sinfulness of masturbation was being drummed into me constantly, you can imagine how awkward it was.
On a number of occasions, certain parts of the textbooks had been removed or blacked out.
Most subjects were taught through the lens of Catholicism. For example, when the history curriculum topic was King Henry VIII, we focused on Saint Thomas More, the Catholic adviser to King Henry who opposed his divorce and was made a martyr due to the courage of his convictions. Much like the Opus Dei numerary teachers who would wear the cilice, he was famous for wearing a hairshirt that irritated the skin as a form of corporal punishment.
When it came to other subjects, we were often simply not taught certain things. On a number of occasions, certain parts of the textbooks had been removed or blacked out. The school would not only refuse to teach the content, but also didn't want us to be reading it in our free time; subject matter like evolution and reproduction, for example. The school leaders, as well as my family and anyone I knew, believed in intelligent design and, therefore, it would be a waste of time to fill our heads with the nonsense of evolution. God created us exactly as we are, and so the notion of evolution was preposterous and degrading to humanity.
And when it came to reproduction, sex education was simply never taught. Sex was seen as the ultimate temptation for a person and was to be avoided at all costs. Its purpose was solely to create a deeper union between the couple through sanctified Catholic marriage and to conceive more children of God. The less us kids knew about it, the better.
The bullying begins
People like me are evidence that this one-size-fits-all approach to our education and growth as young men did not actually work. As I was a 'different' kid, their attempts to mould me in their image only felt like manipulation. And, as a 'different' kid who had also started to notice other boys at school in the same way, I finally started to understand the ramifications of my innocent attractions. I liked boys the way I was meant to like girls. Others started to notice it, too, and it was obvious that the world I was living in would never accept that.
Redfield's school motto was Veritas Liberabit Vos: The truth will set you free. As the years went on, this motto rang more and more false to me. Not just because of the secrecy behind the tactics used to manipulate the students, but because it became ironically clear that there was no freedom in my truth – only condemnation. With no escape from the unwavering opinions and vested interests of everyone who had control over my life, my developing and unchangeable homosexuality made my time in their virtuous Catholic world a living hell.
The homophobic bullying that I experienced at Redfield College started when I was nine years old. This wasn't due to any homosexual act that I had committed, but was derived solely from the heteronormative definitions of 'male' and 'female' that this schooling community held dear. Certain interests and behaviours identified a masculine man, and I didn't live up to them. A couple of years into my time at the school, my musical abilities somewhat accidentally led to a career as a musical theatre and opera performer. And while these activities made me feel alive and free and fulfilled, they immediately made me a target in that world, as these weren't 'masculine' behaviours. So this passion and talent of mine started to make my life a whole lot worse.
I was in the third grade at school when a chance opportunity led me to join the Australian Youth Choir. After some months of singing with them, performing at big venues and even recording an album with Australian music veteran Darryl Cotton, I was encouraged by the choir director to audition for a local production of The Sound of Music – a film I was deeply familiar with. At only nine, I had never considered the idea of being a performer or actor. And yet, after a few years of turbulent change, something about this opportunity spoke to me. It just felt right. I came alive on stage. The shy kid who never felt like he fit in suddenly felt at home, and my confidence grew with each performance.
Then, one evening, as I was exiting the stage door after a show, I was approached by an audience member who, to my amazement, was affiliated with the Australian Opera Company. They expressed interest in me auditioning for the upcoming opera season at the Sydney Opera House. I was 10 when, only a few months later, I first set foot on the Sydney Opera House stage. The suggestion by the Opera scout had led to me being cast in a lead role in Opera Australia's 1996 season of Mozart's The Magic Flute.
To the kids at school, being an opera singer was 'gay'. Singing, full stop, was not a masculine activity. To take it on professionally was the extreme. And so the bullying began. By day, I was being constantly harassed and abused. I was called 'faggot', 'poofter', 'homo', 'gaylord', 'butt pirate', 'procock', 'poofcock' and any other derivative you can think of. The name-calling soon transitioned into physical abuse. But by night, I was receiving standing ovations from thousands of strangers.
I could no longer hide from myself that the way I was supposed to feel about women was how I felt about men. However, within my family, my school and my parish church, the only messaging about homosexuality was that it was a mortal sin. An abomination. Something that was diametrically opposed to God's will and could only result in eternity spent in hell along with serial killers, rapists and Hitler.
Whenever gay rights were brought up in the political world, our family would pray that the so-called 'gay agenda' wouldn't succeed. The gay rights movement was seen as the devil's work, corrupting the purity of God's creation. We sometimes spent the night of the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras at our local Catholic parish for an all-night vigil to pray for the sinful souls taking part. Whenever pop culture promoted gay characters through music, film and TV, words like 'disgusting', 'vile' and 'blasphemous' were used to describe them. And when the judgmental bubble that I lived in gossiped about a child within our community who had 'turned out gay', questions about their upbringing were raised, along with negative opinions about where their parents had failed them.
I started to beg my parents to let me leave Redfield. Surely, my years as a professional performer, along with the dozens of awards I had won over the years in eisteddfods for my piano and singing, would qualify me for some of the performing arts schools in Sydney. Redfield's music offering was minimal at best, they didn't offer drama as a subject and had years' worth of history representing nothing more than misery for me. I ended up successfully applying for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music High School and another performing arts school, receiving an offer for a partial scholarship at both.
However, after many lengthy conversations and consultations with my teachers at Redfield, Mum told me, 'The most important thing is your religious education.' And with that, my parents withdrew my applications to those schools. I was to remain at Redfield. I had no say in the matter. My complaints, my ability, my achievements meant nothing.
The most striking thing about my time at Redfield was how hypocritical that world was. While declaring itself to be a shining example of devout Catholicism, the school I witnessed and experienced was at odds with this. One of the main mantras recited over and over again by our priests, teachers and parents was that 'God is love', and it was our duty as Catholics to try to be as godlike as possible. To me, that meant showing love to everyone we encountered, and in everything we did. Yet the verbal and physical abuse I went through, the archaic, judgmental beliefs and manipulation by the secretive organisation I was surrounded by, didn't feel like love at all. Rather, they felt like targeted coercion, based on judgment, designed to hold me back from being myself, and from discovering the real world outside their organisation – which, by extension, prevented me from ever being honest and authentic about my true self.
I think the school's inaction in response to what was happening to me under their watch was due to their beliefs being inherently homophobic. And because they did think I was gay, the blame of it all lay with me. So it wasn't wrong for the other kids to point out this flaw in who I was. And if the school was to make an example of the bullies, it would feel like they were somehow justifying my perceived abhorrent nature. That's definitely what I took on board at the time.
I graduated from Redfield College in 2003. Despite the ordeal, I ended up doing pretty well in my Higher School Certificate. I had the best sleep of my life on my last day of school. I was finally free of the place and was excited to go after what I wanted. I had really missed the opera over the years. I missed performing and acting. I had big dreams and high hopes, but I knew no one in my family took me seriously. I had known what I wanted for a long time now. I had no contacts, and no clue about how I would make it happen, but I was determined to prove myself. I wanted to be a movie star.
Only 10 years earlier, I had been living in such fear of myself that I couldn't even say the words 'I'm gay' while coming out – yet now I was on national television sharing my biggest secret.
Speaking out
The ABC Four Corners episode, Purity: An Education in Opus Dei, aired on January 30, 2023. It detailed the Pared schools' intricate ties with the secretive Opus Dei sect and how the archaic views of the organisation shaped the education being provided. Not only did the episode showcase some of the damaging, ignorant and irresponsible ideals being spread among the students in their care, but it also delved into the structure of the Opus Dei organisation and how the schools were being used to mould kids to their own small-world views while withholding the real world around them.
In the program, I spoke of the homophobia within the Opus Dei/Pared community, and of the claustrophobic world created by their constant monitoring. I talked about the isolation felt by the queer students there, and how damaging and long-term the effects are of the bullying received from fellow students, which the schools turn a blind eye to.
Only 10 years earlier, I had been living in such fear of myself that I couldn't even say the words 'I'm gay' while coming out – yet now I was on national television sharing my biggest secret and calling for an end to bigoted homophobia. It was even more surreal to think of the guy I had been years before then, when I would sit in church for 20 minutes past the end of mass, praying for God to take the gay away.
Within minutes of the program finishing, I was inundated by messages. While it was incredibly affirming to have so many people reach out with nice things to say, what really touched me to my core were the people from all across the world, strangers who I had never met, sending me their own similar stories and thanking me for speaking on their behalf. Stuck in their own cages, they hadn't realised that they were not alone and that they needed their voices to be heard.
Over the next few months, I was contacted by various journalists who wanted me to share more of my stories and experiences, especially my exposure to conversion therapy practices. A new bill was being introduced before the NSW Parliament that would once and for all make conversion therapy illegal. In late 2023, Equality Australia, a non-profit organisation that champions the rights of the LGBTQI+ community, asked me to publicly share my experiences with the psychologist who tried to hypnotise the gay out of me when I was in my 20s, and I continued to work with Equality Australia as the bill got closer to being introduced to parliament.
In early 2024, the new Equality Bill passed, and conversion therapy practices were finally banned in NSW. The teenage version of me, who wished with all his might that he would wake up as a different person and no longer have to suffer the burden of being himself, never would have imagined that one day he'd be a public advocate for LGBTQI+ equality. Yet here I am.
The main lesson I have learnt from life is, ironically, that the truth does indeed set you free. Though Veritas Liberabit Vos is Redfield's school motto, the way I was raised within their Opus Dei community turned my truth into a cage. It took years of setbacks, tears, suicidal moments and learning lessons in some of the hardest ways possible to get to where I am today. But I am proud to say that this is my truth, and I am finally free.

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Country and western shirts hang on wire coat hangers, cowboy boots sit beneath them, and some toys – a troll wearing a sombrero hat, an illuminated ghost – and trucker caps fill the top shelf. It's a modest stash for this travelling wilbury. After Strings won two Grammys for best bluegrass album – in 2021 for Home, and in 2025 for Live Vol. 1 – it taught him to trust the process and realise he has what it takes to succeed. He's collaborated with Post Malone (M-E-X-I-C-O), written and recorded with Nelson (California Sober), and recently wrote a three-page letter to Dylan which his friend – musician T Bone Burnett – assured he had read and was impressed by. Dylan is also a fan of his music; joining the Outlaw Festival bill was not an afterthought. Strings first heard bluegrass as a four-year-old, his stepfather Terry Barber introducing him to the blues, fiddling and gospel inflected verses. 'My parents took me to the Charlotte Bluegrass Festival in Michigan, not far from where I grew up. That's when I saw bluegrass for the first time,' says Strings, who was born William Lee Apostol and acquired the nickname from an aunt who saw him learn bluegrass instruments with a never-before-seen ease. 'Seeing those old musicians on stage in their suits and big hats, playing gold-tone banjos, standing up to their mics, well, that blew me away,' he says. 'That's when I got bit by the bug.' Listening to the music of bluegrass Hall of Famers like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin and the Osbourne Brothers set the mood, too. 'Bluegrass is music that's passed down over the generations in my family. My dad learned it from his folks, and I got it from him, and I will teach my son, too. It's a tradition that runs deep,' says Strings. Songs like Doc Watson's Salt Creek and Beaumont Rag and the Stanley Brothers' How Mountain Girls Can Love were on high rotation at home. Strings played with his dad until the age of 10, before swapping to the electric guitar. 'I had enough of hanging out with old men who I had little else in common with,' he says. He found his subculture with the skaters, who listened to death metal and hardcore. His eyes light up when he tells me he has collaborated with Canadian death metal band Cryptopsy. 'I don't have anything else I can do if this fails. I'm not a carpenter, and I don't like cleaning windows.' After finishing high school in 2011, Strings moved in with a friend in Traverse City, Michigan. It was there he took to open mic nights, wooing with traditional bluegrass. The city, known for its beaches, lured him, as did the art gallery scene and microbreweries that attracted university students. There he got a sense that there was more to life than his small-town trappings, and meeting fellow bluegrass musician Don Julin inspired him to branch out and play more. In July, Strings will embark on his first tour of Australia. He's already got a few friends there, including Tommy Emmanuel and the Melbourne band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (some potential studio time has been set aside should their plans align). 'When I knew I was having a baby, Stu MacKenzie [frontman of King Gizzard] was one of the first I reached out to ask how do you manage touring and raising a family,' says Strings, who married his manager Ally Dale in 2023. The couple welcomed their son River in September. 'Having a son has put everything I do in perspective,' he says. 'Work and music are important, but my family and their wellbeing take the lead. If they're good, I am free to go sing.' Strings spent a decade on the road before success came his way. It's only in 2025 that he's lessened that gig load. Back in 2017, it was 200 gigs and 300 days away from home. 'You know there's a cornfield out there, but you can't make out the leaves because you're moving too fast,' he reflects of that time. For all his guitar-prodigy ability, Strings continues with a private guitar tutor and assignments to meet behind the scenes. He writes most of his songs on the road and is already working on a follow-up to last year's Highway Prayers. The jam-band hero teamed with producer Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Kanye West) to make Highway Prayers, an album Rolling Stone dubbed 'funnier if you're stoned'. There's Americana pop on Gild the Lily; an a cappella harmony leads Leaning on a Travelin' Song, where the banjo gets its rock star moment; while Cabin Song fiddles its way to swamp-like rhythms. 'I don't have anything else I can do if this fails,' says Strings as he leans into his leather sofa at the Sunset Marquis on the day of the gig. 'I am not a carpenter. I don't like cleaning windows or working in the hot sun. I play music and if I don't have this, I don't know how I would provide for my family. 'I want to play the best show possible, so people will come back and see me next time. I don't want to go back to being poor,' says Strings. 'It's truly deeply ingrained in me to survive, and the way I do that is to entertain and go crazy on stage.' Strings was born and raised in Michigan by his stepfather Barber and mother Debra Apostol. His father died of an overdose when Strings was two. He thanks his maternal grandmother Connie for instilling him with kindness, and says she's the reason he carries a lot of 'Christian guilt' around to this day. She was the closest thing to an angel in his wayward upbringing. 'I grew up in a wild family, a little band of outlaws. I saw a lot of substance abuse and a lot of things happened to me when I was little, things too deep to go into,' Strings says. 'I was exposed to many people ruining their lives. We had toothless tweakers with sunken cheeks sleeping on our couch, and I didn't want to do that. If I stayed in [Michigan], I knew that was where I was headed.' School was difficult too, and with two addicted parents, finding a voice of reason was hard. 'I failed all through school because I was an asshole, but that was because I had a lot of pain at home,' he says. 'It's hard to learn about history and algebra when you don't know what you're going to eat tonight. I was looking for a break in the wall and when I found that break, I made a run for it and I didn't look back. I didn't want to end up in misery.' At 23, Strings got sober. 'I have smoked crack, tried heroin, done meth and all sorts of shit, but I knew if I did it regularly, I wouldn't be able to come back from it,' he says. I knew this wasn't a life for me.' Loading The proud family man says he's found his purpose in life – it's more spiritual than religious epiphany. Strings admits DMT therapy has helped see the proverbial light. 'I believe it's my duty to wave the bluegrass banner. I love to turn people on it and I have found my happy place,' he says. 'Bluegrass hits harder than an MP3, you know,' he smiles. 'When you hear the banjo in real life and somebody sings into a microphone, it's not enhanced by backing tracks or autotune; it's more human than that. That's where sweetness lies. That's where the songs live and how we survive this game.'