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- “Orange Is The New Black” star Samira Wiley says she was in tears after being outed as gay by a co-star.
- Actress Samira Wiley revealed she was outed as gay by one of her “Orange Is The New Black” co-stars on WYNC’s Nancy podcast.
- October 11 is National Coming Out Day, which is a day for LGBT awareness and visibility.
- Wiley said coming out on her own terms was “something that somebody took” from her.
Actress Samira Wiley revealed she was outed as gay by one of her “Orange Is The New Black” co-stars when she “wasn’t out at all”on WYNC’s Nancy podcast.
The co-star, who was never named, mentioned Wiley while talking about gay actors in the “OITNB” cast. (Many online are speculating that it was Lea Delauria who plays Boo.) When Wiley saw her name in print being named as a lesbian, she said she “cried a lot.”
“And I like, tried to get it taken down,” she said.
Today is National Coming Out Day, which is a day for LGBT awareness and visibility. Wiley said the opportunity to come out when she was ready was “something that somebody took” from her.
“Everyone’s journey is their own,” she said. “You should be able to come out on your own terms.”
The 31-year-old credits her character Poussey for helping her come to terms with her sexuality and “fall in love” with herself. Wiley currently plays another LGBT character on Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
“I think that if I wasn’t portraying these characters, I wonder how my own journey with my own sexual orientation, how I would embrace that, how I would walk the world if I wasn’t able to embrace the characters that I have been,” she said.
Wiley married her longtime partner, “Orange Is The New Black” writer Lauren Morelli in March 2017. The couple met on the set of the show. Morelli realised she was gay while writing for the Netflix series.
Although Wiley didn’t get to choose when she came out to the world, she said she’s “very, very happy it’s worked out this way.”
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