Reneé Rapp admits she ‘constantly’ deals with internalised homophobia even after coming out
Reneé Rapp has revealed she “constantly” has to deal with internalised homophobia, even after coming out on SNL.
The Mean Girls star unapologetically came out as a lesbian whilst appearing as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in January, after previously identifying as bisexual.
But the “Tummy Hurts” singer revealed that she still has to put in work to quash the self-doubt she faced after coming out on SNL.
In an interview with Them, Rapp said she avoided looking at her phone “for a couple days” after filming the show and coming out, “because I was so f**king terrified and felt so s**ty”.
“But then it was just, like, a thing, and it felt good,” she said, despite fans still questioning her identity after she came out.
“I still have incredibly homophobic thoughts toward myself constantly. ‘Lesbian’ was not a good word for me to hear as a kid,” she said, “and now it’s something that I have such a close emotional connection to.”
The now-infamous line from her SNL appearance – where Rapp was introduced as “little lesbian intern, Reneé” – was originally supposed to be, “little bisexual intern”. However, the star told the outlet that she nervously asked non-binary writer Celeste Yim if they could change it.
“They were so sweet — and obviously, they were going to be so sweet. But to me, I was thinking about being so afraid to publicly change my identity. I didn’t want anybody to be upset with me.”
The Sex Lives of College Girls star has spoken out before about navigating homophobia, particularly in her childhood.
Rapp grew up in an area that she described as the “super a**-backwards and very conservative” location of Huntersville in North Carolina, where she recalled on the Call Her Daddy podcast that “everyone was super f**ked and homophobic. It just sucked.”
How did this story make you feel?
