Emmy winner Samira Wiley has opened up about coming out…and the awful toll it took on her.
Wiley had a break out role as Poussey on the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, joining the show in 2013. Though she played Poussey as a gay woman, she had yet to go public with her own sexuality. While working on Orange, Wiley says another cast member “outed” her as a lesbian during an interview.
In an interview with the popular podcast “Nancy,” Wiley opened up about her coming out. “First season I wasn’t out at all,” she explained. “By fourth season I was like ‘come give me your p@ssy!’ But in the beginning, I was playing a gay character, or I always thought of her in that way. But someone from the cast actually, was doing an interview and talking about out gay actors in the cast. They mentioned my name and I saw it in print, and I cried. I cried a lot. I tried to get it taken down.”
Related: Samira Wiley wants to be “the voice that people don’t have in their parents”
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The problem, Wiley elaborated, wasn’t being out to the world, but that someone else had outed her rather than coming out to the world herself. “That’s something that somebody took from me, you know?” she says. “You should be able to come out on your own terms, so that was probably a little deeper.”
Wiley has since gone on to play another queer character, Moira, on The Handmaid’s Tale, which scored her an Emmy award. She also married her longtime girlfriend, Lauren Morelli, a writer for OITNB, earlier this year.
WillyWilly
Outed? Really? How delusional is the person. It’s 2018 most people’s gaydar is strong enough these days to know the difference between someone who is gay for pay and someone who was born that way. Sorry to burst this otherwise lovely and talented young woman’s bubble, but her being outed is about as earthshattering as finding out that George Michael’s “Father Figure” wasn’t about the Asian girl in his 1987 music video having daddy issues.
Raymundo
It’s not anyone’s place to say she’s gay, it’s her choice to come out which may or may not have been dangerous for her.
Donston
Firstly, being a more masculine female or a more effeminate male doesn’t automatically equate to be romantically and sexually same-sex leaning. Just as being a masculine male or feminine female definitely doesn’t equate to being hetero-leaning. And knowing who you want to be with fo’ real, fo’ real while not being scared of people knowing that is not the same thing as living in a glass closet or people sorta knowing.
But I did kinda think she “officially” came out like a few years ago.
Rock-N-RollHS
I always thought she was gay. But acknowledging it publicly is a world of difference in HollywoodLand, I can see how she might have not wanted to wear it on her sleeve and talk about it publicly. As a black female actress, she has enough obstacles. Like her as an actress though. . .
Lacuevaman
ahhh……
nitejonboy
Bet it was Natasha Lyonne.
1898
which castmate outed her?
djmcgamester
I thought she had been out for a long time. In 2016 she announced her engagement to a female writer of OitNB and then married her in 2017. Not sure how you can be more out than that.
Brgod
I always thought she was an “out” actress?? This story makes no sense, she announced her marriage to a woman years back. Many of the actresses on OITNB are gay in real life. As soon as I saw her on OITNB I immediately knew she was a lesbian, so I don’t understand what the big deal is??