Ilana and Eliot Glazer of Broad City are executive producing the show!

From the minds of Broad City's Ilana and Eliot Glazer comes a new queer AMC series, I Run Hot.  

Ilana is set to direct and executive produce the show, with her brother Eliot writing, executive producing, and starring. Teen Wolf star Colton Haynes co-stars in the series.

"The show follows the unlikely friendship between Eliot, a gay curmudgeon who never quite fit in with the community, and Colton, a famous #instagay who can’t help but exemplify it."

That's all the information we have on I Run Hot at the moment, but Haynes shared on Instagram that he's "sooo excited" to get to work. Glazer also celebrated on Instagram, writing "started from the bottom, now we're queer."

Colton Haynes to Play an InstaGay in New Series I Run Hot

We're stuck at home bored and we've literally watched almost everything on Netflix, okay?!?!

Did you know that out Teen Wolf and Arrow actor Colton Haynes has a YouTube channel? Because I sure didn't, and with my Netflix and Hulu watchlists already running desperately dry, this new discovery was a welcome surprise, if only to offer a brief reprieve from the crushing anxiety of the pandemic that is currently plaguing the world.

While there's not much content on it, Colton did post a new video over the weekend where he takes us through his daily routine (or rather, his daily routine since we've all been stuck at home for the past month), and in a weird way, it's oddly comforting, relaxing, and hypnotizing to watch Colton give himself a haircut and do his brows (topless, of course). 

I'm not sure the exact science behind it, but it just is. Maybe it's the cabin fever starting to set it, and maybe I'm just starting to get a little stir crazy, but watching a cute guy do an otherwise mundane daily task is just what I needed with all this craziness going on in the world. 

That's totally normal, right???? *nervous laugh*

Get ready with Colton in the video below. 

Watching Colton Haynes Give Himself a Haircut Is Kinda Relaxing

"I’m trying to square who I am with the inauthentic version of myself I invested in for years."

Colton Haynes, the out actor most known for his roles in Teen Wolf and Arrow, has opened up about his struggle to break into the industry for Vulture. 

When Haynes was just 14-years-old, he danced as a gogo boy at bars in Kansas. In 2006, Haynes moved to Los Angeles and took his first LA job as a phone-sex operator, using his country upbringing to sell a farm boy persona. "It wasn’t how I had planned on making it in Hollywood, but it wasn’t a bad start," he said, "to be 18 years old, new in town, and earning enough money to pay my bills. I dipped in and out of dinners, shops, and meetings to take my calls. Standing on Santa Monica Boulevard outside a CVS, I growled into my cell phone to a caller, 'You want me to fatten you up like livestock getting ready for slaughter?' I kept it up as passersby eyed me strangely. 'Time for your Geritol.'"

After sending out resumes and headshots, a manager finally agreed to meet with him – but it was not what he expected. "The owners of the company — let’s call him Brad — was waiting for me with his assistant. He was wearing a skintight muscle tee and had gleaming-white veneers. He was middle-aged, and his hairline looked as if it had recently been rejuvenated."

Brad would have Haynes, as well as the dozens of other aspiring actors, audition for him, constantly critiquing how outwardly gay Haynes appeared.

"'Why are you using your hands so much when you talk? And your posture is too … loose,' he said. 'We’re definitely going to have to change your mannerisms. They’re a little too … theater.' Code for gay. I stood up straighter."

One of the conspicuous things Brad made the actors do was participate in a "sexy-scene night,” where they would act out sex scenes from movies. Haynes was paired with a man he calls Ethan, an actor he recognized from TV. His description of the events performed in front of the "class" is pretty graphic. 

"We began with our lines. Eventually, I had to take off my pants. I stared into Ethan’s eyes, feeling everyone else’s eyes on my body. I pulled down my boxers, and I got on my knees. I turned Ethan, bare naked, toward the audience and began performing a fake oral-sex scene on him. Then he threw me down on all fours and simulated penetration while my d*ck flapped back and forth, slapping against my stomach. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at the audience."

At the end of the scene, Brad commented on the size of Ethan's testicles. 

After putting Haynes through a series of tests, Brad still thought he acted too gay and eventually dropped him, telling him that if he was in need of money, he knew a place that could help. "He wrote down something on a business card, then handed it to me. 'It’s been a pleasure working with you,' he said. Back at my apartment, I looked at the card. On the back, he’d written 'rentboy.com,'" a site for sex workers.

Despite that horrific experience, Haynes took his career into his own hands and cold-called his way into his first acting gig on CSI: Miami. "The day after it aired, calls started pouring in from companies wanting to represent me."

Even after landing an agent, it was still a tough industry for Haynes to navigate. When Haynes was younger, he had done a revealing photoshoot for a gay magazine called XY. His management considered it "so radioactive it had lawyers send cease-and-desist letters to anyone who posted the images online."

Once, "at a photoshoot for a fashion editorial, the XY pictures were up on the mood board. A member of my team threw a fit. I understood because it was explained to me repeatedly — by managers, agents, publicists, executives, producers — that the only thing standing between me and the career I wanted was that I was gay."

They still wanted Haynes to present as heterosexual. "When I was photographed cozying up with Lauren Conrad at an event in 2011, I was told not to deny our rumored relationship — better to have the tabloids speculate about us," he says.

All the hiding and suppressing began to take a physical toll on Haynes. "My mental health deteriorated, and I grew dependent on alcohol and pills. When a doctor suggested my secret was making me sick, I knew he was right." This is when he was able to work up the courage to come out in 2016.

And Haynes believed his career suffered for it. After all that he'd done, "the work mostly dried up. When I was closeted, I beat out straight guys to play straight roles, and I played them well. Now, the only auditions I get are for gay characters, which remain sparse. Is that because I’m not very good? Maybe. But that didn’t stop me from booking roles before. It’s no different for the young gay actors I see coming up today, trying to make it in a system that isn’t built for them."

Now, Haynes is sharing his harrowing story to hopefully make things better for the next generation.

"To be a gay actor in Hollywood, even in 2021, is to be inundated with mixed messages," the 33-year-old said. "Consumers are mostly straight, so don’t alienate them. But lots of the decision-makers are gay, so play that game! Now that I’m older and sober, I’m trying to square who I am with the inauthentic version of myself I invested in for years. I often wonder how different things would’ve been if I were allowed to be who I was when I moved to town: a hopeful kid confident in his sexuality."

Read Colton Haynes full account here. 

The out actor talks lust, abuse, addiction, stardom, and redemption in his new book, coming 2022. 

Days after barring his soul in Vulture Magazine where he shared details of his humble beginnings as a sex-worker trying to make it into Hollywood and exposing abuse in the industry, Colton Haynes has announced his upcoming memoir, Miss Memory Lane.

The official description reads: 

A brutally honest and moving memoir of lust, abuse, addiction, stardom, and redemption from Arrow and Teen Wolf actor Colton Haynes.

Four years ago, Colton Haynes woke up in a hospital. He’d had two seizures, lost the sight in one eye, almost ruptured a kidney, and been put on an involuntary psychiatry hold. Not yet thirty, he knew he had to take stock of his life and make some serious changes if he wanted to see his next birthday.

As he worked towards sobriety, Haynes allowed himself to become vulnerable for the first time in years and with that, discovered profound self-awareness. He had millions of social media followers who constantly told him they loved him. But what would they think if they knew his true story? If they knew where he came from and the things he had done?  

Now, Colton bravely pulls back the curtain on his life and career, revealing the incredible highs and devastating lows. From his unorthodox childhood in a small Kansas town, to coming to terms with his sexuality, he keeps nothing back. 

By sixteen, he had been signed by the world’s top modeling agency and his face appeared on billboards. But he was still a broke, lonely, confused teenager, surrounded by people telling him he could be a star as long as he never let anyone see his true self. As his career in television took off, the stress of wearing so many masks and trying to please so many different people turned his use of drugs and alcohol into full-blown addiction.

A lyrical and intimate confession, apology, and cautionary tale, Miss Memory Lane is an unforgettable story of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled; of a family torn apart and rebuilt; and of a man stepping into the light as no one but himself.

Miss Memory Lane will be on sale May 31, 2022.

Colton Haynes Bares All in Newly Announced Memoir Miss Memory Lane

Miss Memory Lane details grooming, addiction, and that infamous magazine shoot...

We’re both in Los Angeles yet still separated by an internet connection and an attention-seeking feline diva named Timothee Chalomew. “He just loves to interrupt me,” Colton Haynes explained as Timothee zips in and out of frame. 

“That’s their job, you gotta let them do their jobs,” I offered. I know from cats and kids and other life distractions. Any annoyance is outweighed by the comfort these creatures can bring. Comfort that’s needed when you’re about to share your life with millions of readers. 

With Miss Memory Lane, the 33-year-old actor and model has invited readers to bottleneck every accident, sit in every traffic jam, and sometimes take a scenic detour on the road trip of his life. It’s vulnerable, it’s beautiful and at the same time, it’s stark and naive. The spine is made from authenticity and holds the book together, keeping it from being a trumped-up tell-all and instead allowing the book to be what it is. A confession? Of sorts. But I think it’s more accurately described as a reflective essay, a therapy session put to page. 

It’s personal and intimate and not apologetic of that fact. There are moments that are glossed over, some left out completely and others that beg more questions, but ultimately you realize Haynes has put everything he possibly could into this book, and you can only hope that part two is in the works. 

I told Haynes about my history with him. “I actually had that XY magazine. I was very young and stole it from Barnes & Noble. I remember being like, ‘what’s the big deal?’ and not understanding Hollywood or really the world then.” The release of the gay magazine XY’s R-rated shoot between Haynes and an ex became the source of a lot of gossip - mainly revolving around Haynes’ sexuality. 

“It was exacerbated by the fact that I was trying to hide all of it.” Haynes said confidently, “I’ve recently come to terms with why that was wrong, but now I love that shoot. I had so much fun!”

“I don’t know that it was necessarily wrong to hide it, because that’s survival,” I said insistently. There’s something in Haynes that makes you want to protect him, to understand that even though he’s not partial to playing the victim, he still is one. “That’s what so much of this book is about - survival. It’s more that it just wasn’t long-term productive, even though it seemed short-term necessary.”

He smiled graciously, nodding, yet not needing my defense, and I felt pride. This is another one of Haynes’ superpowers, the ability to feel as though your investment in him is fruitful. 

I asked him about the title of the memoir, Miss Memory Lane. 

“It’s actually a nickname that was given to me by a friend who I met in treatment. It really stuck with me.” He explains. “Everyone always comments - my friends, my family, they’re always like, ‘why are you so addicted and obsessed with your memories?’ and for me, I finally realized I was just like my mother, and she was just like her mother. I found a bunch of their journals and read them – which they’re probably going to be pissed about, sorry! – but there I am, exactly like them. So for me, Miss Memory Lane is not just me, but my mom and her mom. It’s something really special to me.”

Haynes explained the moment he first received the name as he entered rehab for the final time. His roommate was referring to all of the notebooks, albums, and journals Haynes kept. I do wonder if the moniker stuck not only because it was so appropriate, or because Haynes was finally being seen. There’s coming out, and there’s being out.

When Haynes came out publicly in 2016 he told Arrow co-star Stephen Amell, “I didn’t come out of the closet, I flew. You should see the jackets I’m wearing now!” Haynes was ready so he didn’t have to get ready, but the world still felt behind. 

Haynes always felt a little ahead of the curve, a feeling most would mistake for maturity. He was 14 when he began an illicit sexual relationship with a 42-year-old man. And he was well into his 30s when he realized it was abusive. This came after his first sexual experience as a pre-adolescent at the hands of his uncle. 

“One thing about kids,” I said to Haynes during our chat, “is that they never know they’re kids. They never think that they’re too young. They never think they’re not old enough to handle whatever’s happening to them.” There’s an excerpt near the end of the book where he says his uncle “had the audacity to die of AIDS before I ever got to tell him thank you, I hate you, how could you do that to me?” They’re emotions he never got to process at the time, too busy trying to survive. 

“It wasn’t until recently that I knew [these underaged abusive relationships] were wrong.” Haynes elaborated. “When it comes to being queer, a lot of people don’t understand that just to get love or affection or attention, we have to use our bodies, and a lot of times that can be at a young age. We’re doing whatever we can to get the attention that we require because we don’t feel loved.” Haynes began seeking out this affection and found he didn’t relate to other kids in his age bracket, other kids that didn’t care the same weight he did. 

“Looking back at that kid it does make me really sad for him, for me. But at the same time, I find myself wanting that free way of living that I used to have. Not doing the underaged things I was doing, but there are a lot of moments that I still hold on to that I really miss from back then and I’m not able to live that way anymore.” Haynes is wistful but contemplative. It’s an interesting contradiction and a theme that’s paved his path for decades. 

“There’s a confidence that’s inherent and necessary to situations like that,” I said, empathizing with the tug of war Haynes was embroiled in. “I love the stories about the times you would drop your headshots randomly backstage, like ‘hey, call me!’ And like, who does that? Kids, kids do that.”

Haynes laughed at his former audacity, “I told all of my friends that story because I used to do that shit all the time. I mean, I have the actual photographs in the same original binder.” He dug through some piles and came up with a binder filled with the greatest hits of the early ‘00s. Haynes is shirtless, looking pensive, smizing with the ocean blurred behind him, smoldering in an oversized suit with a picture of Kate Moss in the background. So many more photos of a young man who was told he was beautiful and chose to believe it. 

Personally, as the product of a single parent with dementia, a lot of my childhood memories no longer exist. It was wild seeing Haynes pull out albums, journals, and notebooks and all of these icons to a life that has to be seen to be believed.

There’s a reverence to his memories in Miss Memory Lane, evocative of Ethan Mordden or Edmund White in the prose-like nature of his writing. There are turns of phrase that elevate the book from a standard autobiography to something that could truly be called a memoir. I wondered about the contradiction of a young boy that felt he only had his looks going for him, being able to turn out these beautiful bon mots. The beauty of the style itself is often in contradiction with the words being said.

“My way of communicating with people was through my photographs. It was my art, my outlet, and it was my way of telling a story with my eyes or my body. When writing this book it was really important that I wanted to be completely candid and I wanted to speak my mind and dive into the different facets of me. This was never going to be a cookie-cutter, phone-it-in kind of situation.”

His tenacity pays off as you’re invited into the peaks and valleys of life. From dealing with his mother and father, then just his mother, then his brother, then his newfound extended family, all of these relationships elicit their own sagas and yet the focus, kindly, is on Colton Haynes. Even if you don’t understand the why of him, this certainly helps answer the question of how?

As you might expect, Haynes’s relationship with his mother acts as a nucleus of the book. There’s a rebelliousness, an undying love, and a bit of resentment between every line. If Dana were a character in the fictional retelling of Haynes’s life, she’d be neither protagonist nor antagonist. She’d be the anti-hero. From Haynes’s point of view, Dana appears as the kind of woman that didn’t necessarily have children as much as she had future best friends. She loved them, sure, but she was her own woman and lacked a certain capacity for self-sacrifice. She was never going to be able to provide a stable home and dote over her children until they went to college. She took Haynes and his older brother Clinton along on her personal journey to find herself. 

This can provide adventure and build character, and it can also lead to feelings of inadequacy and abandonment. Haynes felt all of these in excess. He followed in her footsteps in many ways. Being confident in his beauty and being unable to accept the word "no" were both things he inherited from her.

Another thing he inherited was an addiction. 

“There were years where I did not speak to my mom because I didn’t realize that Alcoholism and Drug Abuse are actually brain diseases. I didn’t know until I suffered through it on my own. I’m going on four years sober now and I get to live life in a way my parents never got to.” Haynes explained, his tone an intoxicating mix of hopeful melancholy, “Once I got sober, I realized my mom literally did not understand that she had a disease. Even though the times where she wasn’t at her best, or when Social Services were over all the time, or when she’d be gone for a week and we’d be at home with our 13-year-old sisters taking care of us, I see her as this incredible, iconic, beautiful person. This story is sort of a redemption story for my mom too.”

The trip down Miss Memory Lane is a triumphant journey that introduces Colton Haynes. His way. 

Miss Memory Lane is currently available for pre-order and will be released on May 31st. 

Colton Haynes, on His Own Terms