Anthony Rapp Thought Having a Child ‘Simply Wasn’t Gonna Occur’ Earlier than Welcoming Son with Ken Ithiphol
Anthony Rapp/Instagram
Anthony Rapp is having fun with his first days of fatherhood.
The previous Rent star, 51, and fiancé Ken Ithiphol welcomed their first child, son Rai Larson Ithiphol, final month — and Rapp tells PEOPLE that his coronary heart has opened “a lot extra” for the reason that couple met the most recent addition to their household.
“My coronary heart grew a lot when he was born. There have been ways in which I felt about this little being that I did not even know I might really feel — I thought I might really feel — however then to expertise it’s so profound,” he explains.
Following child Rai’s arrival on Dec. 2, Rapp launched followers to the couple’s gestational surrogate, Nikki, who carried the couple’s son, and thanked her for “profoundly” reworking their lives.
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RELATED: Anthony Rapp Welcomes Baby Boy Rai Larson with Fiancé Ken Ithiphol: ‘Our Family Has Grown!’
Earlier than Rai’s birth, Rapp thought the chance to change into a father could have handed him by, he tells PEOPLE.
“It is one thing that I had considered a very long time in the past, [but], you realize, any relationships that I used to be in, it simply wasn’t gonna occur,” he explains. “And at a sure level I believed, properly, it is in all probability handed me by. However then with Ken, it was one thing that he had actually needed. And I used to be like, ‘Are you positive you need [this]? I am getting somewhat older. Is that gonna be okay?’ And he was like, ‘No, completely.'”
“However a part of me had type of made peace with it. It was one thing that I actually needed, after which I used to be like perhaps it is not gonna occur. So for it to occur, it is just like the bonus spherical of bonus rounds,” he provides.
The Star Trek: Discovery star admits that he is “conscious” he will likely be “pushing 70 when he is graduating from highschool,” he says; nonetheless, he’s simply having fun with the current moments with Rai, whom he describes as “actually wonderful,” and says that he is “gonna do my greatest to stay round so long as I can.”
Rapp, who’s presently starring in his one-man musical With out You — based mostly on his 2006 memoir of the identical title, concerning the “life-changing” deaths of his mom and Lease creator Jonathan Larson — additionally shares that doing the Off-Broadway present at this explicit time in his life has been particular.
RELATED: Anthony Rapp Reflects on the ‘Life-Changing’ Deaths of His Mother and Rent Creator Jonathan Larson
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“As a result of I am spending time with my mother, I really feel nonetheless very related to the legacy of oldsters,” he says, including that he and Ithiphol plan to honor these they’ve misplaced as Rai grows up.
“It has been very, very extremely bittersweet — Ken’s additionally misplaced his mother — that neither of our moms are right here to fulfill our son in individual,” Rapp shares. “However on the similar time, there are methods we each discuss how we will embody their spirit and that he can nonetheless know them one way or the other.”
Rapp says that, by performing With out You, he’s “spending time with my mother, who’s gone.” Nevertheless, he provides, “I additionally really feel like I am filtering her loving vitality [through to Rai]. It is so absolutely current, I really feel prefer it’s type of washing by me onto him a bit.”
Without You performs a restricted engagement at New World Phases by April 30.