Her truth. Jameela Jamil came out as queer on Twitter, opening up about her fear of sharing her sexual orientation publicly.
“Twitter is brutal,” the Good Place alum, 33, began in a lengthy note shared on Wednesday, February 5. “This is why I never officially came out as queer. I added a rainbow to my name when I felt ready a few years ago, as it’s not easy within the south Asian community to be accepted, and I always answered honestly if ever straight-up asked about it on Twitter.”
— Jameela Jamil 🌈 (@jameelajamil) February 5, 2020
Jamil explained that her hesitancy to vocalize her identity stemmed from her upbringing. “But I kept it low because I was scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping, over something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear and turmoil when I was a kid,” she continued. “I didn’t come from a family with *anyone* openly out. It’s also scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you’re already a brown female in your thirties.”
The actress added: “This is absolutely not how I wanted it to come out. I’m jumping off this hell app for a while because I don’t want to read mean comments dismissing this. You can keep your thoughts.”
Jamil went on to address backlash surrounding her role as a judge on the HBO Max series Legendary. Social media users previously called her out for accepting a job on the ballroom voguing competition show, which one Twitter user claimed “belongs to queer people because it was created, fought for & passed down by our queer elders.” Some even asked her to relinquish her position.
She concluded in her Twitter post: “To the press, I really really don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just focus on the contestants of the show until it’s out.”
Earlier this week, Jamil opened up exclusively to Us Weekly about her five-year relationship with boyfriend James Blake. “We’re not stupid long distance,” she revealed at the Zumba Fitness Be SELFish event on Tuesday, February 4. “We organize our schedules in advance to make sure that we don’t spend very much time apart. And when we do, it’s very short. So we’re very, very lucky that our managers care about our mental health and make sure that we’re together as much as possible.”
With reporting by Nicole Pajer
