Joanna Johnson, a co-star of CBS'
daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, has come out
gay.
The 50-year-old Johnson returns this
week to reprise the role of Karen Spencer and viewers will find out
Spencer, who was first introduced in 1991, has been secretly living
with another woman [played by Crystal Chappell], with whom she raised
a daughter.
Speaking to TV
Guide, Johnson said she's married to L.A. club promoter
Michelle Agnew and the couple is raising two adoptive children,
5-year-old Julian and 2-year-old Harlow.
“It feels weird and wrong to play
this revelation about Karen's life and not talk about my own,”
Johnson said. “I used to hang out with Ellen DeGeneres, k.d. lang
and Melissa Etheridge back in the day and thought it was so beautiful
they were out, even though I didn't have the nerve. When I realized
I was gay in my early twenties we didn't have role models like Ellen.
I'm not anywhere near as famous as those ladies, but I guess it's my
turn to do my little part. It's time to live a fully authentic
life.”
Johnson said she married Agnew in 2008
“during the two minutes when same-sex marriage was legal in
California” and that her parents' response to her coming out at the
age of 23 “broke my heart.”
“Unfortunately, my mom passed away
before we were able to come to peace with it, but my father did come
around,” she said.