Mumbai, May 17 (IANS): Canadian actor Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman recalls being the only identifiably queer person and the only person of colour in his town while growing up, adding that he experienced an abundance of homophobia, emotional abuse, physical violence and racism.

Coming from an adopted white household and raised in a small town that was mostly an all-white, racist, and homophobic community, the actor says that his life was a nightmare and a horror story in itself, due to which he didn't want to see films that could terrorise him further.

"I was raised by an entirely white family; I grew up in white spaces; I was the only identifiably queer person and the only person of colour in my family, in my school, in my town. I experienced an abundance of homophobia, emotional abuse, physical violence, racism," Bowyer-Chapman said.

"So, I left at a really young age -- I left when I was like 16 years old and started modelling, and I only did that because I knew that it was going to be an out, an escape from that world for me. Throughout my twenties and my early thirties, I did a lot of therapy, and I got to work through a lot of that stuff," said Bowyer-Chapman, whose 2019 horror release "Spiral" premieres on Amazon Prime Video.