Supermodel Lily Cole ‘acknowledges she’s not straight’ as she comes out as queer
Lily Cole. (Dave M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Amazon)
British supermodel Lily Cole has “acknowledged she’s not straight” as she proudly comes out as queer in a new interview.
Cole, 33, the waify red-head listed by Vogue Paris as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s when she was just 21, opened up about her sexuality in her new book and an interview with The Sunday Times Style.
The actor told the magazine in an interview published Sunday (15 August) that as much as she is a private person who shies from the public eye, Cole has come out as “not straight”.
“I like that word because of its openness,” she said of the queerness, “because I think all those boundaries are quite rigid.”
While in her book Who Cares Wins: How to Protect the Planet You Love, the model writes: “Just as we do not choose the circumstances and ancestral patterns we are born into, none of us choose the cultural norms and laws we inherit.
Model Lily Cole dances on stage prior to the Vivienne Westwood Red Label show. (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
“Had my mixed-race daughter been born in a different country, she would have been a crime,” the Impossible.com founder said of Wylde Cole Ferreira, her first child whom she welcomed in 2015.
“If I were living in another country today, my queerness would be a crime.”
Elsewhere in the fashion world, model Ariel Nicholson made history earlier this month as the first openly trans model on the cover of American Vogue.
Walking in the footsteps of actor Laverne Cox and model Valentina Sampaio, who were the first trans people to grace the covers of British Vogue and Vogue Paris respectively, Nicholson has fronted the magazine’s iconic September issue.
For Nicholson, her historic cover is in no way a fabled silver bullet when it comes to tackling transphobia at a time when dozens of US legislators are ramming reviled anti-trans laws.
There are limits to what ‘representation’ can do,” Nicholson told the Condé Nast publication.
“Obviously it’s a big deal being the first trans woman on the cover of Vogue, but it’s also hard to say exactly what kind of big deal it is when the effects are so intangible.”
