Ellen Page says she ‘barely touched a woman outside’ until she was 27
Elliot Page stars in Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy.” (Rich Fury/Getty)
Ellen Page has opened up about her coming out process, discussing how she used to make her girlfriends hide and did not feel comfortable touching another woman in public for a long time.
Page, who stars in the upcoming Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, told The Independent she could relate to her character Vanya’s journey of self-discovery.
“She’s going from this place of repression, to finding out who she is, to getting in touch with the rage she has, that leads into this… power,” Page described.
The actor described herself as being “very, very, very closeted” in the first decade of her career—which encompassed her major breakthrough with Juno in 2007 and blockbusters such as Inception in 2010 and the X-Men franchise.
Ellen Page discussed how liberating it was to openly living as a lesbian, (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty for IMDb)
Even when she started dating women, she was “making her girlfriends leave buildings through different exits, or hide in hotel bathrooms when room service came,” The Independent reported.
“I mean, I barely touched a woman outside until I was 27 years old,” she told the newspaper, shaking her head and adding: “Crazy.”
The Gaycation filmmaker has now been married to dancer Emma Portner for a little over a year. The two tied the knot in January 2018.
Ellen Page says coming out was liberating
Page eventually came out to the world in 2014 in a powerful speech delivered at the Human Rights Campaign’s Time to THRIVE conference, an experience she found liberating.
“I wasn’t OK, physically, at the time. I had a lot of physical stuff that was happening. I was very susceptible to panic attacks. And coming out, like,” she clicks her fingers, “it was as if I transformed overnight.”
Page has since used her platform to advocate passionately for LGBT+ rights.
In the past few weeks, she has made headlines for slamming Vice President Mike Pence’s anti-LGBT views while on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, for calling out fellow actor Chris Pratt for attending a church linked to the “infamously anti-LGBT” Hillsong Church, and also the media for how it reports on transgender issues.
Page addressed those topics again in the interview with The Independent, wishing Pence would keep his anti-LGBT views to himself.
“Gay marriage… it’s not a debate. Whether you have the religious right to f***ing not serve a queer person or a trans person, that’s not a debate.”
— Ellen Page
“If he wants to go home, and while he’s making breakfast in the morning, be thinking about how much he hates gay people, and doesn’t want them to be f***ing happy, be in your head with that,” she said.
She continued: “But if you’re growing up in a society where it’s [OK] to be having a conversation about whether the rights of LGBTQ people exist or not… if a kid is growing up in a homophobic household, that is an abusive household. Full stop.”
Page added that certain issues are not, and should not be treated as, a discussion in which both arguments have equal weight.
She said: “Gay marriage… it’s not a debate. Whether you have the religious right to f***ing not serve a queer person or a trans person, that’s not a debate. And the media needs to stop treating it like it’s a debate. It’s actually Not. A. Debate. It never has been. Like… Stop it.”
