When Jesse Tyler Ferguson is asked about the moment he first came out as gay, he immediately points to the time he was caught stealing porn.

I would occasionally, you know, slip in a gay magazine into a reputable publication and then I would slip it under my shirt and I would exit the store, the Modern Family star said in an interview for Coming Out Stories , a new video series produced by People and Entertainment Weekly.

Fergusons secret was safe that is, until his porn smuggling set off the alarm system at a book store in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Employees took the actor, who was then a freshman in high school, into the stores back room before a police officer arrived and arrested him.

My mom and dad had to come to the store, and they showed them the nature of the material that I was stealing, and thats sort of how I came out, he said.

Though Ferguson is able to laugh about it in retrospect, he added, At the time, it was incredibly traumatizing. To have a person of the law actually say, This is a shameful thing that youve done was really traumatizing.

Harder, still, was the fact that Fergusons father wasnt accepting of his sons sexuality at first.

I think I came out to him three times, the actor said. His parents, he explained, wanted my life to be easy. They were just scared that I was making things more difficult for myself.

Things got better with time, however, and the elder Ferguson danced at my [2013 wedding, to lawyer Justin Mikita ] very happily.

That process and that growth its human nature, the actor said. Its what he had to go through, and I think that process was really beautiful.