Beloved actress Aunjanue Ellis is opening up about her sexuality and has revealed that she is Bisexual.
In a recent interview, Ellis stated that she was a proud Bisexual woman and speaks about the challenges that she faces.
“There is an assumption made of me- a presumption made of me,” she said. “Is it because I’m a Black woman from Mississippi? Is it because I’m older? I don’t know what the mechanics are that goes into them not processing, or them not just being able to believe that in the same way I am Black, I am queer. This is who I am.”
She adds that she is public with her sexuality. “The way that I live my life, around the people that I live my life around, I am public about it. I’m very clear about being bisexual. I have a sweatshirt that says ‘Girl Bi’ that I wear everywhere.”
Ellis also details how one of her family members noticed it while no one else did.
“I was thinking, ‘Why didn’t more people pay attention to that?’ she said. “And I was like, they probably thought it said ‘Queen. It wasn’t that I was expecting any sort of major reaction or anything like that. One of my family members noticed, but nobody else did.”
Aunjanue Ellis wants to use her platform as a way to bring queer representation through her line of work. As of now, she is working on a project about Fannie Lou Famer and the queer figures that were involved with Hamer’s activism.
“There aren’t a lot of novels about Black queer women. There are characters, but the full experience of a Black woman being gay or bisexual, it doesn’t exist, so we’ve got to write it into existence,” she said.
“This idea that we just decided to be gay two years ago, or 15 years ago, or 20 years ago is a lie. It is imperative that we see more of that because it is the truth of who we are. It is not a blemish on who we are. It is the wonderful scope of our humanity as Black folks in this country. It is something that I am insisting on, in what I bring into the world creatively.”