Gillian Anderson reveals ‘secret, illicit’ same-sex romance as a teenager
Gillian Anderson (Getty Images)
Gillian Anderson is opening up about the same-sex relationship she had while in high school and reflecting on how she didn’t have the language to understand or describe her sexuality when she was younger.
In a 16 August interview with The Sunday Times, the X-Files and The Crown star revealed that one of her earliest relationships was with an older girl at her high school.
Anderson said: “It felt secretive and illicit and wrong and we had to hide”. She said the relationship was eventually discovered by a boyfriend she had later on, who broke up with her after finding out.
Despite the relationship, Anderson said she didn’t think of herself as LGBTQ+ at the time because she had also had a few relationships with boys.
“But I definitely felt I didn’t have the language for it,” she said. “Even later on when I had other relationships [with women] I’m not sure I ever thought of them as being potentially forever.”
Anderson previously discussed her high school relationship in a 2012 interview with Out, saying she had been “in a relationship with a girl for a long time” during high school. At the time, she also spoke about how her relationships and appearance during her teenage years challenged expectations of what was considered socially acceptable.
Now, Anderson says that, looking back, she recognises that there were parts of herself she simply didn’t know how to articulate. She said that when she was younger, “there were parts of my brain that thought [women] were temporary”.
Anderson has been married twice, to X-Files assistant art director Clyde Klotzalso and documentary filmmaker Julian Ozanne. In her conversation with The Sunday Times, Anderson offered a reflection on how she views partnership now. Although the person she considers her life partner “happens to be male”, she said she believes she would feel exactly the same way if that person were a woman.
“I’d feel, ‘This is my life partner,’” she said.
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