Neil Patrick Harris reflected on his decision to come out as gay in 2006, saying he opened up about his private life after becoming a “target” of gossip bloggers, including Perez Hilton.

“I had started dating David, who’s now my husband, David Burtka, well before I auditioned for ‘How I Met Your Mother,’” Harris shared on Tuesday’s episode of the “Great Company with Jamie Laing” podcast. “Everyone on that show knew David, knew that we were a couple. But that was at a time when there were bloggers on the internet and that you would go to like read the salacious, you know, ‘Try to guess who this actor is that’s gay and in the closet,’ kind of comment.”

He added: “And so, there was a fear that I would be like, the next target on that. And David and I would go to movie premieres together, but I would walk the carpet and he would go around the other side of the photographers.”

Harris acknowledged that they could have justified keeping their personal life private at the time, given both he and Burtka risked potential professional ramifications by confirming their couple status.

“But, intrinsically, makes David potentially feel less than,” he said. “If I’m getting to walk across while he’s like skulking behind, right? And then, sure enough, the the target came towards me in a very weird way.

“A comment had come out that I had said that I wasn’t of that persuasion, which was the quoted phrase,” he continued. “Like someone asked a publicist about my sexuality and the publicist said I was ‘Not of that persuasion.’ That turned into, ‘That’s weird for him to say because we know that he’s gay.’”

Harris shared that he realized at that moment that he was “going to have to say something.”

“I got to get ahead of the story,” the actor recalled. “Because I don’t want to be coming out in reaction to ‘If anyone has any information on Neil Patrick Harris, have you ever slept with him, please come forward.’”

While Harris didn’t name Hilton directly, the celebrity blogger did infamously launch an online campaign to “out” the “Doogie Howser, M.D.” star in the early 2000s, as he solicited his readers to come forward with any tips about the actor’s personal life. When Harris did come out, Hilton responded, “We are so proud (despite the naysayers) in having a hand in bringing about change.”

However, during a July appearance on the “Hang Out With Sean Hannity” podcast, Hilton expressed that he deeply regretted the way he targeted celebrities on his blog. He shared that he even reached out to Harris, as well as Britney Spears and Khloé Kardashian, to make amends.

“I realized what I was doing was wrong,” Hilton, who was hospitalized last week following a self-harm incident on TikTok, said. “I realized I could still be funny, but I didn’t have to be so cheap, and I didn’t have to be so cruel. It was cruel. It’s something that I carry with me. It’s like my scarlet letter, and it’s very heavy baggage.”

Hilton compared his campaign to out celebrities to a “witch hunt,” adding, “I was trying to track down people he dated. I viewed it as entertainment, but it’s their lives.”

Per Hilton, Harris accepted his apology, sharing that he was asked to write something for the actor’s memoir.

“So I wrote a little something in there, and he was very, very gracious,” Hilton said.

As for Harris, he admitted he was “a little scared” about what the reaction would be to his statement. Yet, he said there was “indifference at best.”

“I was a little bit offended that more people weren’t surprised,” he said on Tuesday. “I expected a little more. ‘Wait, what?’”

Watch his full interview on the “Great Company” podcast above.

It’s dinosaur mayhem at the box office as two newcomers about the prehistoric beasts — The End of Oak Street and PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie — set out to challenge the behemoth that is Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Warner Bros. releases director David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street in 3,400 North American theaters on Friday, with the studio projecting an opening weekend in the range of $18 million to $23 million. Warner Bros. expects to add between $20 million to $25 million internationally for the sci-fi survival movie that hails from Bad Robot and carries an $80 million production budget.

Anne Hathaway continues her busy 2026, leading the cast that also includes Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. Mitchell, known for the 2014 horror hit It Follows, helmed the movie from his own script about a family in the early 1980s as they realize that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to an area with prehistoric predators.

The End of Oak Street holds an 82 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney called the movie “mindlessly entertaining in a big-dumb-fun kind of way.” At the Oak Street premiere, Hathaway expressed to THR her gratitude “that audiences want to go see original things, and this movie is really original.”

For those seeking a more family-friendly dino adventure, Paramount Pictures releases PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie in more than 3,500 locations in North America. For the third feature installment in producer Spin Master Entertainment’s animated franchise, the studio projects a domestic opening ranging in the mid-to-high teens after having already surpassed $27 million in 30 international markets. Dino Movie has a $39.5 million production budget.

Carter Young, Mckenna Grace, Terry Crews, Jennifer Hudson and Snoop Dogg are among the voice stars for director Cal Brunker’s film that sees our Paw Patrol canine heroes end up in a world containing dinosaurs. The previous sequel, 2023’s PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, opened to $22.7 million domestically in late September. Its $205 million global run improved upon the $144 worldwide total for 2021’s original PAW Patrol: The Movie, which adapted the series that first launched on Nick Jr. in 2013.

The release of a PAW Patrol movie can be counted on to increase interest in all iterations of the brand, including merchandise and streaming for the shows. PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie has earned an 85 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with THR critic Frank Scheck writing that, “while the material is thoroughly juvenile, the films impart valuable messages to their impressionable viewers.”

Meanwhile, Spider-Man: Brand New Day will continue flying high with its third straight weekend at the top of the box office chart. Sony Pictures expects filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton’s smash hit to bring its domestic total to $700 million in the next day or so as the film looks to soon surpass the global sum of $1.9 billion that previous franchise title Spider-Man: No Way Home collected after opening in December 2021. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya and Sadie Sink, Brand New Day has notched no shortage of records in its historic run.

Thanks to hits like Brand New Day, The Odyssey, Toy Story 5 and others, the summer box office surpassed the $4 billion mark this week, representing just the second time that the prime moviegoing season has achieved this since the COVID pandemic. (The first time was 2023, aka the summer of Barbenheimer.) This means that the all-time summer mark of $4.755 billion from 2013 could still remain within reach.

Other new theatrical options this weekend include thriller The Rivals of Amziah King, starring Matthew McConaughey, and the Kristen Stewart-led stoner comedy The Wrong Girls.