'King Richard' star Aunjanue Ellis opens up about being bisexual
"King Richard" star Aunjanue Ellis is living her true, authentic life, revealing in a new interview that she's bisexual.
Although the Oscar nominee told Variety that wasn't news to those close to her, her sexuality wasn't something that had been in the media before, though it also wasn't something she had tried to conceal.
"Nobody asked," she said.
Ellis, 53, recalled wearing a Dolce & Gabbana suit jacket emblazoned with the word "Queer" in rhinestones on the left sleeve back in March at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards.
"I was thinking, 'Why didn't more people pay attention to that? And I was like, they probably thought it said 'Queen,'" she said, adding that she has a favorite sweatshirt that says "Girl Bi" that she wears "everywhere."
As for why she never brought up the topic herself, Ellis had a simple response. "How do you work that into the conversation, in the middle of me talking about this movie?" she asked. "I'm not that chick."
"My job was to talk about 'King Richard,' the Williams family, these wonderful young women I worked with, Will Smith's incredible work in that movie," she continued. "I wasn't going to be like, 'And by the way, in case you ain't heard yet...' Because that's artificial."
Ellis said her goal in the entertainment industry is to make Black women proud and spoke about why people often don't recognize her as part of the LGBTQ community.
"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."
