Jonathan Groff Looks Back on the Life of Onetime BF Gavin Creel

"Looking" star Jonathan Groff – who recently claimed his first Tony award for his role in "Merrily We Roll Along" – opened up about the impact the late Gavin Creel had on him. "He changed my life," a visibly moved Groff recalled.

For one thing, Creel inspired Groff to come out publicly.

"I'd come out of the closet personally," Groff told Broadway World in an interview that touched on his upcoming Broadway role as Bobby Darin in the new jukebox musical "Just in Time."

"But there had been no occasion for me to announce it publicly," Groff went on to say. It was during their romantic relationship that Creel – who was openly gay and starring in a Broadway revival of "Hair" – "organized these buses" to transport people to the National Equality March in 2009.

It was at that march – which David Mixner and Cleve Jones helped to bring about – that Groff decided to liberate himself from the closet once and for all.

"I remember we were on the buses and... he was painting, like, the peace sign on my cheek with the cast of 'Hair,' and we were all down there... and I really remember the moment of looking over at him with literally a bullhorn and feeling like, okay, am I gonna?" Groff said of his decision to embrace authenticity publicly. "It was such an essential moment. It was because of who he was, and how out, and how vocal, and how brave and, and, like, fearless and externalized he was, and wanting to kind of try to be as brave as he was."

"But it was also the love that I was feeling for him," Groff added. "Feeling love like that for the first time mind-blowingly meant more to me," he said, than even his love of acting – a realization that was key because, as he explained, coming out at the time meant "sort of an unspoken, or maybe sometimes spoken, thing that you were sacrificing something in your career if you were going to come out publicly.

"And I remember looking at him and feeling that I would rather feel this feeling than ever be on a TV show or do a movie," Groff recalled. "This is so much more meaningful to me."

The 39-year-old actor added, "And so, I owe him that, and I'm so grateful that we got to talk about that many times, even after we had, like, broken up."

Creel died last September 30 of a rare form of cancer at the age of 48. He left a legacy of songwriting and memorable performances, having won a Grammy for the Broadway Cast recording of a revival of "Into the Woods" and a Tony for his role in a revival of "Hello, Dolly!" opposite bette Midler (and, later, Bernadette Peters). He also won a Drama Desk Award for "Hello, Dolly!" and a Laurence Olivier Award (for the West End production in London of "The Book of Mormon").

Groff called his death "an unbelievable loss," and praised his memorial service as "so insanely beautiful".