Kristen Stewart ‘didn’t want to be that weird d**ey girl – and that sucks’
Kristen Stewart at a fan screening of “Underwater” in Los Angeles. (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty)
Kristen Stewart has opened up about her struggle to embrace her queerness, saying she “didn’t want to be that weird ‘d***y’ girl”.
The actor told The Advocate that a lack of LGBT+ visibility in the media impacted on her ability to express herself.
“I was really comfortably functioning conventionally,” Stewart said. “Only in retrospect [do I] see that if I had just had my eyes opened to more ambiguity in a way that wasn’t weird, I probably would’ve had more crushes on girls when I was little. I just genuinely didn’t.”
She continued: “I know now that [I was affected by] the world opening up for me a little bit more as I got older.
“The more artists that I met, people that I met, friends that I had, and different examples of things and ways to love and know each other presented themselves, I was like, ‘I can do that.’
“I didn’t want to be called a lesbo. And I didn’t want to be that weird, gross, ‘d**ey’ girl. And that sucks. It’s terrible. But I was always really attracted to, sort of, weirdness and otherness. I would’ve loved to have had more examples of that not being ridiculed and a point of scrutiny.”
Kristen Stewart stars in lesbian Christmas rom-com Happiest Season.
Stewart’s comments come just weeks before the release of her highly anticipated lesbian Christmas film, Happiest Season.
Happiest Season stars Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as a lesbian couple dealing with the stress of a conservative family at Christmas.
The film was directed by Clea DuVall, and its incredible cast also includes Dan Levy, Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie, Mary Steenburgen, Jake McDorman, Victor Garber, Mila Kunis and Burl Moseley.
Happiest Season was originally supposed to get a theatrical release, but will now stream on Hulu from November 25 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to the film’s director Clea DuVall for InStyle‘s November issue, Kristen Stewart said she had “latent” shame about her sexuality before coming out.
The actor said she was “immediately” asked if she was a lesbian when she first started dating a woman.
I didn’t want to be called a lesbo. And I didn’t want to be that weird, gross, ‘d***y’ girl. And that sucks.
“It’s like: ‘God, I’m 21 years old.’ I felt like maybe there were things that have hurt people I’ve been with,” Stewart said.
“I didn’t like giving myself to the public, in a way. It felt like such thievery. This was a period of time when I was sort of cagey.”
Stewart explained that she felt a sense of invasion from the media even in her “straight relationships” and wanted to do everything she could to not be photographed.
She also revealed that she struggled to comprehend the pressure of representing queer people when she was younger.
“Retrospectively, I can tell you I have experience with this story. But back then I would have been like: ‘No, I’m fine. My parents are fine with it. Everything’s fine.’ That’s bulls**t. It’s been hard. It’s been weird. It’s that way for everyone.”
