Ellen Page talks living with 'shame' before coming out

Ellen Page stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show Wednesday to discuss her famous coming-out speech. While speaking to host Ellen DeGeneres, the Juno actress explained she was "the most nervous [she'd] ever been in [her] life while delivering her coming-out speech at the Human Rights Campaign's first annual THRIVE conference in February. "I think my biggest fear of doing it was even just having a panic attack, quite frankly," said Page. "But I was just so ready to do it and quite frankly so excited to do it. So it was a combination of such thrill to finally be at that place in my life where I was able to do that and grateful to have that moment. And grateful to you because you did it in a time when it was much harder and much scarier." DeGeneres, who came out as a lesbian in 1997, later compared the coming-out process to "releasing shame." "It's toxic," Page continued. "We talked about this a bit. You think you're at a place where you're, like, 'Oh, I'm happy to be gay' ... and honestly, it wasn't until making that choice and doing that where I realized I was carrying a tremendous amount of shame and guilt for not being out. I felt isolated from the LGBT community and now I don't." Page's interview with DeGeneres will air on May 27, but you can check out an excerpt below.