Times where someone is Forced Out of the Closet in Live-Action TV series.
- Liz Lemon drunkenly outs her cousin on 30 Rock.
- Avocado Toast: Molly is outed due to her girlfriend posting a photo showing them kissing before she'd told people, which makes her unhappy. After she tells her students (who saw this) she's bisexual (with some explicit language), she gets suspended from teaching.
- In Barney Miller, a recurring cop character is gay. Everyone in the squad knows but they all basically agree not to say anything, especially to Internal Affairs. Then one time when Wojo is getting hounded by IA over some trifling thing he accidentally blurts it out, in episode "Movie: Part 1".
- The Bisexual: Leila is staying in the closet about being bisexual early on. Her ex Sadie learns she's dating a man though and gets hostile over it. Soon enough, all her lesbian friends know.
- The Boys (2019): Homelander tells everyone Maeve is gay (actually, bisexual) while they're on a talk show after Maeve kept it secret with him as her beard.
- Chasing Life: Brenna's mom catches her kissing Greer, outing her as being into girls along with boys. Her mom is accepting, if surprised. Brenna explicitly says she's bisexual later.
- The City (1995)'s Azure C was exposed as a transgender woman when her boyfriend Bernardo picked up a tabloid with a headline detailing this.
- The Commish: An off-duty closeted police officer is a witness to a gay-bashing incident. Tony strongly encourages him to write up a report, which the officer says will force him out. He does so and then is beaten by the same group of gay-bashers.
- The Confessions of Frannie Langton: Frannie's barrister obliquely reveals how Hepzibah was in love with Marguerite when defending Frannie at her trial.
- Control Z: Isabela is outed as transgender in the first episode. Gerry is outed for watching gay porn (but he insists he's not gay). Later two more guys are outed as gay, along with Gaby. All this is done by the hacker.
- In the backstory of Conviction (2016), Jackson Morrison was forced out of the closet as a teenager, resulting in him spending much of his early adult life in near-celibacy in order to avoid creating scandals for his parents.
- One episode of CSI featured a football player who was outed during an investigation. One of the straight female investigators gets called out on this, but she fails to see why it's such a big deal.
- In the CSI: Cyber episode "L0M1S", a lesbian senator who'd been hiding her sexuality is unwillingly outed by the titular hacker, who ruins strangers' personal lives For the Evulz.
- Dates: Erica accidentally leaves her phone on in a call with her brother when talking to Kate (a conversation that includes shouting she's gay).
- Dead of Summer: Drew (a closeted trans boy) is outed to Jessie accidentally when after falling into the water accidentally his breasts show through his shirt, which makes her aware he's assigned female at birth. She then mocks him with his deadname and tries to blackmail Drew. He blackmails her back however.
- ER. Fed up with her hem-hawing and acting terrified to be seen in public with her, Kerry Weaver's girlfriend Sandy grabs her and kisses her in full view of the ER staff. For the most part, they seem completely unfazed, presumably because they already suspected or knew, or contrary to her fears, didn't care.
- In Faking It, Shane tries to out Karma and Amy as lesbians to the school because he thinks they shouldn't have to hide themselves. This is complicated by the fact that Karma and Amy aren't actually a couple and neither see themselves as a lesbian at the time. Merely two episodes later, it turns out that Shane was right about Amy at least, however (though she's probably bi)...
- Fellow Travelers: This is the threat hanging over every LGBT+ person in the early 1950s as the Lavender Scare
to get them all fired from the US government has begun. It means not only a loss of employment but social ruin in the homophobic era. One man, after being outed, attempts suicide. Some even out others they know to save themselves, either as scapegoats or making deals with the government investigators so they can resign quietly in return. - First Day: Hannah is outed as transgender on social media after starting with a new school. At first it seems like her bully Isabella did it, but she insists it's untrue. It turns out she's right, and a boy from a higher grade did this after learning Hannah's gender by overhearing teachers talking.
- In Glee, both Santana and Karofsky are outed against their will.
- When Finn and Santana are having an argument in "Mash Off", he tells her to come out in the middle of the hallway. When everyone stares at them, he continues attacking her for loving Brittany. It's later revealed that a student went and told her uncle, who is running a TV commercial outing her to the whole state in order to discredit the school. She is then threatened with rape around the school. In her wedding vows she includes "I've been outed and bullied".
- Karofsky moves school in season 3 but still meets up with Kurt to try and woo him — when a footballer from his new, more homophobic school, sees them talking he assumes the worst and texts the team, resulting in his locker being spray-painted "FAG" and everyone finding out before cyberbullying him and causing him attempt suicide but not succeed in "On My Way".
- At the end of series one of Gossip Girl (2007), Georgina outs Eric van der Woodsen to both his mother and sister. They're shocked at first but soon become supportive of him.
- Gossip Girl (2021): Audrey accidentally outs Aki to his parents Roger and Jody, though he isn't aware of it at first because he was out of the room at the time. Later, when his company is being sued for its discriminatory treatment of its LGBT employees, Roger deflects this criticism by revealing that his son is gay...on television (he's bisexual). Aki, however, isn't mad at Audrey because it was an accidental outing on her part and is more angry at his father for outing him to avoid media criticism of his company.
- On I Am Not Okay With This, Brad outs Sydney during the homecoming dance, having stolen her diary and found out that she kissed Dina and has romantic feelings for her. This is just one of several mistakes that culminate in his messy death.
- Impulse: Henry spills the beans on Jenna being gay, but only to protect herself from being outed as a teleporter by Jenna. She regrets it immediately, saying she's betrayed Jenna's trust.
- Ruka from Last Friends is blackmailed into coming out before being ready.
- Showed up a few times in Law & Order. Either the victim was being threatened with outing or the killer was or one of the red herrings.
- The L Word:
- After her ex-boyfriend Tim is introduced with her boyfriend Max, Jenny outs the latter as transgender to him and undergoing medical transition. Max is pissed, since she didn't ask if this was okay first.
- Alice outs a homophobic NBA player after seeing him at a closet party, angered by the guy's blatant hypocrisy.
- In The Office (US) episode "Gay Witch Hunt," Michael learns that Oscar is gay and outs him to the entire office. He then spends the rest of the episode trying to make it up to him, before corporate gives Oscar two months paid vacation (or "gay-cation") so he doesn't sue Dunder Mifflin.
- One of Us is Lying:
- Cooper is forcibly outed as gay when his relationship with his boyfriend gets revealed.
- Later it happens again when his boyfriend does this inadvertently by tagging Cooper in a photo of them.
- In Pretty Little Liars, Emily's boyfriend Ben catches her kissing her new neighbor, Maya, and calls them "fucking dykes". Later, pictures of Emily and Maya kissing are shown to the whole town.
- Queen Sugar: Nova's childhood friend Billie told Nova's father Ernest that she was queer without her consent, out of jealously over Nova and Ernest's close relationship. Billie had a rocky relationship with her own father because he did nothing to help her after she was sexually assaulted, while Ernest was always kind to her. Ernest did not approve of Nova's sexuality and this strained their relationship, though Nova eventually learns that he changed his mind and regretted his reaction. Nova broke off her friendship with Billie and they didn't reconcile until decades later.
- Drew Boyd in Queer as Folk (US). A blackmailer sent incriminating photos of him to a tabloid, prompting Drew to make a public statement about his sexuality. But he never would've done that if he hadn't felt forced.
- The Republic of Sarah: Bella realizes AJ's been having an affair with Alexis, her stepmother, after AJ knows something about a locket that was kept private between them, and it simultaneously reveals they're queer.
- Schitt's Creek: David is under the impression Patrick's parents know Patrick is gay and is David's boyfriend as well as business partner. It's a natural assumption given how open Patrick is in the town. However, when David invites the Brewers to a Surprise Party for their son, Johnny welcomes them to the motel and outs Patrick by referring to the romantic side of David and Patrick's relationship. Johnny is mortified and literally runs to find David and warn him. David goes to see Patrick, and Patrick explains that he is worried about changing his relationship with his beloved parents. David then goes to the motel and introduces himself to the Brewers, who turn out to be loving and supportive and only hurt that their son did not tell them sooner. They agree Patrick should go through the process of coming out on his own terms, and so they let him do so at the party. After everyone has gone home, David and Patrick share a romantic dance and Patrick reveals it was obvious his parents already knew when he told them, and he thanks David for handling the situation and making it one of the happiest days of his life.
- Sense8: Lito Rodriguez starts the series firmly in the closet because he's a major telenovela star and being openly gay would hurt his career. In the Christmas special an enemy posts photos of Lito with his boyfriend Hernando online, exposing them both as gay. Despite the press hounding them and his agents trying to convince him to deny everything Lito refuses to go back in the closet. His agency and the studios reject him for it but the public are much warmer towards him, with several men thanking him for inspiring them to also come out.
- Throughout the series run on The Smoking Room, Robin had been failing to conceal his crush on Ben from the post room to the point that it was an open secret among the other denizens of the smoking room. In the final episode, after Janet happily announces her engagement to a man in her church's congregation, an embittered Robin pours scorn on the relationship and suggests she's only going through with it out of fear of loneliness. Janet snaps back that while her relationship might not be something out of Wuthering Heights...Janet: ...at least it's a real relationship. I am not, like certain people I could mention, dreaming my best years away - or the tail-end of them at any rate - on some pointless, soul-sapping crush!
[Long awkward pause]
Len: Fuckin' 'ell... - SOKO Potsdam: Max Henschel is closeted until the last episode of season 2, when a SWAT Team finds him being held prisoner by the father of his murdered boyfriend. He was apparently concerned his somewhat old-fashioned parents would have a problem with him being gay, but fortunately Bernhard just needs a few minutes to get used to the idea, and even lays flowers on the boyfriend's grave with Max at the end of the episode, then takes him out for beer.
- Supergirl (2015): When Maggie Sawyer was a teenager, she wrote a Valentine card to her childhood friend asking her out. Unfortuately, said girl turned out to be straight and showed the card to her parents, who then outed Maggie to her homophobic parents, resulting in Maggie being kicked out of the house and forced to live with her aunt growing up.
- Trailer Park Boys: In "Where in the Fuck is Randy's Barbeque?", a car crash forces Randy and Mr. Lahey to evacuate Lahey's trailer in the middle of some erotic roleplay. Lahey tries to pass it off to the many witnesses as a rehearsal for a play, but Randy comes out with the truth.
- The Truth About Alex is an award-winning short film from 1986 in which the titular Alex is forced out after a trucker attempting to pick him up beats him upon being rebuffed.
- In Veronica Mars there's one episode where Veronica investigates blackmail letters that certain students have been receiving, including one girl whose gay status would be revealed if she did not pay up. When Veronica figures things out, she discovers that the perp was a gay student who just wanted to out her girlfriend so they could be together in public.
- Why Women Kill: Karl has no choice but to confess his true sexuality to his wife Simone after she receives an anonymous envelope containing a strip of photos depicting him holding and kissing another man.
- On Yellowjackets Coach Ben Scott twice ends up revealing that he's gay despite having intended to keep it a secret because it's 1996 and he's rightly worried about what would happen if it got out. The first time happens when fellow crash survivor Natalie asks him if he's gay, noting that he never looks at any of the Yellowjacket girls' breasts. She says she's cool with it, so he admits as much, getting her promise that she won't tell anyone. Later, he reveals it to Misty, who has been crushing on him, when he is pushed past his Rage Breaking Point by her clumsy attempts to get him to reciprocate her feelings for him.
