be closeted

“Cannabis consumers have had to kind of be closeted,” said the chef, Andrea Drummer, standing inside the Lowell kitchen on a recent afternoon while perfecting a mascarpone-filled crepe with peaches for the dessert menu.

"I think it would have killed me to be closeted for that long."

But his refusal to be closeted changed things.

“I felt I had to be closeted. I had to be quiet about who I was.”

Although Nakhane speaks freely about his sexual orientation – largely at the prompting of journalists, it must be said – he, too, used to be closeted, like Xolani.