Out & Proud: Actress Amandla Stenberg Comes Out As Gay In Fearless IG Post And Interview
Amandla Stenberg is celebrating Pride Week by coming out as lesbian.
In a new Wonderland cover story that she shared a picture from, the Hunger Games actress previewed it on Instagram by explaining her decision to let everyone know her sexual orientation.
“So happy to say the words Yep, I’m Gay in official print,” she wrote. “Thank you to KP [King Princess] for providing me with such a safe space to come out. We talk about gay sobbing, first encounters with lesbian masturbation, queer icons, Toni Morrison, disillusionment as a critical step, the art I’ve been working on, and the films that I have coming out this year.”
In the actual interview, Stenberg expounded on how happy she was to actually come out.
“I’m grateful for how being gay has afforded me this ability to experience and understand love and sex, and therefore life, in an expansive and infinite way,” she says in the magazine’s summer issue, which will be available digitally on Monday (June 18).
“The continual process of unlearning heteronormativity and internalized homophobia can be difficult, but one of the biggest blessings lies in the magic that comes from having to understand love outside the confines of learned heterosexual roles,” she continued.
In 2016, Stenberg came out as bisexual. On Snapchat she explained that reveal, “It’s a really, really hard thing to be silenced and it’s deeply bruising to fight against your identity and to mold yourself into shapes that you just shouldn’t be in.”
“I would also use the word pansexual to describe my sexuality,” she continued. “The thing is I use the word bisexual just because I feel like for people who don’t necessarily know that vocabulary… it’s easier to say I’m bi.”
Stenberg is best known for playing Rue in the 2012 film The Hunger Games. She also reportedly turned down a role in the 2018 blockbuster Black Panther.