Out actress Samira Wiley has said that
one of her Orange is the New Black co-stars outed her before
she was ready.
The 31-year-old Wiley played inmate
Poussey Washington, a lesbian, on the Netflix dramedy. (Her
character was killed off in the show's fifth season.)
Appearing on the podcast Nancy,
Wiley said that she cried when she read about her co-star talking
about her being an out lesbian.
“Someone from my cast – they were
doing an interview when they were talking about out gay actors in the
cast and they mentioned my name, and I saw it in print and I cried.
I cried a lot,” she
said.
“I tried to get it taken down. Look,
I had a journey. I was not all always super open-hearted and, like,
I'm a gay, gaymo.”
Wiley won an Emmy for her portrayal of
Moira, a lesbian, in Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale.
Wiley, who met her future wife, writer
Lauren Morelli, during her run on OITNB, said that her
character on that show helped her come to terms with being out.
“I think falling in love with
Poussey, which is a real thing that happened to me, helped me fall in
love with myself,” she said.
She added that being outed felt like
she was robbed of something valuable.
“That's something somebody took from
me,” Wiley said. “You should be able to come out on your own
terms.”