Actor Busy Philipps reveals her 12-year-old child Birdie is ‘gay and out’ and uses they/them pronouns
Busy Phillips (L) and her child, Birdie. (Getty/Instagram)
Busy Philipps revealed Thursday (31 December) that her eldest child is gay and uses they/them pronouns.
Yes, believe it – a positive, wholesome news story. They still do exist!
The 41-year-old Dawson’s Creek star opened up about raising Birdie Leigh, 12, with husband Marc Silverstein on her podcast Busy Phillips Is Doing Her Best.
“For those of you who are my friends listening at home, this is the first you’re hearing that Birdie is gay and out,” she said.
“Birdie told us at 10 years old and we immediately, I mean, obviously, I knew that Birdie knew.”
Phillips added that Birdie’s pronouns are they/them, but admitted that in public she had been “doing a bad job with the pronouns” because she respects Birdie’s privacy.
Busy Philipps: ‘You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy’
“Because Birdie said that they would like their pronouns to be they/them and I haven’t been doing it because I have this public persona and I want Birdie to be in control of their own narrative and not have to answer to anybody outside of our friends and family if they don’t want to,” she explained.
“And then Bird was like: ‘I don’t give a f**k. You can talk about that I’m gay and out. You can talk about my pronouns. That would be cool with me. That’s great’.
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“So I said: ‘OK I can talk about it on the podcast’.”
She revealed that her child first came out when she found them laying on the floor of their bedroom listening to Harry Styles’ “Fine Line” on repeat.
“I laid down on the floor as well and I was like: ‘Are you alright? Do you want to talk about anything?'” Philipps said.
“And Birdie said: ”It’s just, I feel like I’m alive but I’m not really living, you know? And I just want the living part to start’.
“And I got really emotional because I said: ‘First off, welcome to being my [child], but I want to say this to you because I wish someone had said this to me. This is living. You can’t wait for it to start’.”
Phillips offered Birdie sage advice from her own life: “Build your life however the f**k you want to and it doesn’t have to look like anything you’ve ever seen or anything that’s ever been modelled for you because maybe it doesn’t exist.
“You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t have to be any of these constructs that we’ve all been fed our entire lives. This is a different world that you get to f**king build.”
