Maria Bello, best known for her roles in Coyote Ugly, A History of Violence and most recently, Prisoners co-starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, penned an op-ed in The New York Times in which she comes out as bisexual and matriarch of a “modern family.”
Bello describes how she explained to her young son Jack how she had become romantically involved with her best friend, Clare, someone who was also “like a godmother” to him. Though she had been in relationships with men before, her feelings for Clare proved deeper than the previous times she had fallen in love:
We had an immediate connection but didn’t think of it as romantic or sexual. She was one of the most beautiful, charming, brilliant and funny people I had ever met, but it didn’t occur to me, until that soul-searching moment in my garden, that we could perhaps choose to love each other romantically.
What had I been waiting for all of these years? She is the person I like being with the most, the one with whom I am most myself.
The next time I saw her, in New York, I shared my confusing feelings, and we began the long, painful, wonderful process of trying to figure out what our relationship was supposed to be.
Bello’s “large, Italian-Polish, ‘traditional’ Philadelphia family” surprised her with their acceptance, including her cigar-smoking father, whom she told of her new relationship on the roof of a casino in Atlantic City. Between puffs of his cigar, she recalled, he said: “She’s a good girl, good for you.”
And as for Jack, how did he take it? Bello writes that after she told him, Jack simply smiled and said, “Mom, love is love, whatever you are.”Kids today.
Now, they’ve all become one big, happy, modern family with Maria, Clare, Jack and Jack’s birth father Dan making it work to the best of their abilities. Bello concludes, then, that maybe a modern family is really “just a more honest family.”
TheNewEnergyDude
Good for her! Great actress.
jimbryant
I can’t stand these women who say they are straight when they are in a relationship with a man and then lesbian when they’re in a relationship with a woman. Cue Anne Heche.
Like it or not, women are liars. They don’t respect their sexuality in the way men do.
Why don’t women respect their sexuality? It’s because they don’t experience arousal in order to bring their eggs to the point of fertilization. On the other hand, men have to be aroused in order to deliver sperm to the point of fertilization.
Straight, gay or bi…we don’t need these women in the gay rights movement. They are the ones who are causing it enormous damage with their lies and faking.
Cam
@jimbryant:
She actually said she is bisexual and according to other articles her last two relationships have been with women.
I for one and glad that FINALLY a female celeb has actually come out as Bi when she ISN’T dating a man.
the other Greg
@jimbryant: Since you declare in the Tom Daley comments that male heterosexuality is “superior” to male homosexuality, simply because it leads to reproduction, why don’t you see a correlation on the female side?
Suppose it’s true, as you assert, that women “don’t experience arousal in order to bring their eggs to the point of fertilization” – so what?
If that’s how nature designed it – according to your OWN theory – why do you object to it so much?
Tackle
Great article. To really appreciate the whole of what she is saying, and to get an idea of how open, accepting, and loving her family is, I suggest clicking the link to read the full article from the NY Times.
CherylTHardin
my co-worker’s mother-in-law makes $67/hour on the internet. She has been without a job for seven months but last month her check was $19634 just working on the internet for a few hours. This Site……x.co/3HYz1
sportyguy1983
And I should care about her or any other celebrity’s private life why?
viveutvivas
Why can’t I quite articulate why this kind of thing bothers me?
It’s a bit like when someone who has all his life passed for white suddenly declares he’s black.
ChiChi Man
Good for her! Sexuality is fluid for many people, though many in our community have a problem understanding this fact.
jimbryant
ChiChiMan,
With women, there is no such thing as sexuality as it applies to men. Women see sexuality as a means to an end. Theirs involves faking. In contrast, men see sexuality as an end in itself. There can be no faking a sexual interest.
Charli Girl
@viveutvivas:
I have to agree with you!! As a woman that seems to ALWAYS end up with a woman that professes her bisexuality AFTER the fact mind you, just really pisses me off!! Back and forth and back and forth , ugh just pick a team lady!
I know that’s bad and we are supposed to understand bi’s but just never will!
I know all the huhaw about loving the person, blah blah blah but how in the world can you be attracted to both anatomy’s? Ewwwww
GeriHew
@jimbryant: Thanks for yet more of the usual misogynistic biphobic claptrap Jim.
Will you ever grow tired of being so tragically predictable I wonder?
GeriHew
@Cam: She didn’t actually say she was bisexual. At least not in the The New York Times article. She just expressed herself in such a way that it is quite reasonable and logical to describe her as Bi. Rather like Cynthia Nixon did when it first became apparent that she was in a same-sex relationship.
As for: “I for one am glad that FINALLY a female celeb has actually come out as Bi when she ISN’T dating a man.” Sheesh!
I can think of quite a few female celebs apart from Maria and Cynthia who have come out essentially as bisexual while in a relationship with a woman.
Jessie J
Deborah Anne Dyer (SKIN)
Sia Furler
Amber Heard
Meshell Ndegeocello
Kate Pierson (B52s)
Sarah Paulson
Alison Goldfrapp
Mary Portas
Amanda Barrie
Kristanna Loken (probably)
Iyari Limon
Just to name a few.
GeriHew
@viveutvivas: Re: “It’s a bit like when someone who has all his life passed for white suddenly declares he’s black.”
No it isn’t because she isn’t saying she’s a lesbian.
GeriHew
@Charli Girl: But surely most people can be attracted to “both anatomies” as you put it. If this wasn’t the case only homosexual people would masturbate.
Charli Girl
@GeriHew:
SMH.. Err? Wth? I won’t even try to wrap my head around that one
Lmao
GeriHew
@Charli Girl: Well look at this was.
Masturbation is a form of “self-love” as they say. Some people say it’s a joy and others say it’s a sin. And believe it or not some who say it’s a sin go so far as to say that it’s a form of homosexuality.
But whatever your feelings about masturbation, why would anyone play sexually with their genitals if they didn’t love them?