Actor/singer-songwriter Ben Platt sat down with Ellen DeGeneres to talk about his career (he’s only an Oscar away from being an EGOT) and his new album Sing To Me Instead. Platt has used the videos for the new album as his way of coming out as gay publicly for the first time.

Platt praised Ellen for being “inspiring” to him in talking about his own sexual orientation, which he recently began discussing for the first time.

Said Platt: “I have never had the opportunity in my work or in my art to discuss my sexuality or my relationships and so to have an opportunity to do that through something personal and through a piece of work has been really wonderful and I have to say I grew up a really big fan of yours and of your stand-up and was very inspired by you because you’re always, in the way that you discussed your sexuality and your relationships it became part of the art and part of what makes you so funny and…that was really inspiring to me.”

“I’m honored,” said DeGeneres.

Said Platt of being more open about being gay: “It’s exposing in a new way and I’m trying to show different parts of myself. [The fans] have been really wonderfully supportive. Hopefully we’re past the time where it has to be this whole giant announcement and it can just be part of who you are….”

“That’s what it should be,” replied Ellen. “It should just be like, ‘oh we happen to know that that person is gay and that should be it.”

“I’m very single. We can mention that,” added Platt, who went on to talk about his new role in Ryan Murphy’s The Politician on Netflix.