Netflix’s Adolescence star Erin Doherty opens up about accepting she’s gay after ‘mind-blowing’ relationship

Erin Doherty, one of the leading stars of Netflix’s gripping new crime drama Adolescence, has opened up about her sexuality and how she came to realise that she’s gay.

The 32-year-old British actress revealed in a conversation on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast that she didn’t fully realise or accept that she is gay until she began a “mind-blowing” relationship with a woman in her mid twenties.

“It took me a really, really long time to finally get to the point where I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gay’, but I think, again, because I grew up doing the social thing of going, ‘Oh, OK, well, I’ll have a boyfriend and I’ll do this thing’ and I never questioned it,” she told Day.

“Knowing who I was in my heart of hearts, in my soul, it took me a really long time. No one in my life had shown me that that was an option, so I just never applied it to myself so it took a while to really go, ‘Oh, this is something that I can have’, which also leans into the whole people pleaser thing.

“I never really was ready to carve out that path for myself, even though looking back, I always knew that my relationships with men weren’t satisfying in that whole hearted way that I wanted them to be.”

Though it “took a while”, Doherty said that she’s “there” now, and was helped by her first relationship with a woman at age 25.

“It was mind blowing and it felt like I had come home… I was just like, ‘Wow, this is a part of who I am that I’d never got to meet’ which was just so crazy,” she shared.

“I wouldn’t change it because it’s really made me adore that part and really cherish it and I just hope that I get to offer that to other women or men, whoever you are just lean into your truth because there was something so monumental about that moment of going, ‘Whoa, this is me’ and just embracing it and not applying anything else to it. I just think we all deserve that.”

She’s previously shared that being a “visible” gay woman is “really important” to her.

Though Erin Doherty is perhaps best known for her role as the withering and witty Princess Anne in The Crown, that could soon change: she’s starring in Adolescence on Netflix, which has already garnered rave reviews.

The Guardian declared it “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades”, while Variety dubbed it a “emotionally devastating” and “gut-wrenching” watch.

The four-part crime show tells the story of 13-year-old boy Jamie (Owen Cooper) who is accused of murdering a classmate. Boiling Point actor and Adolescence co-creator Stephen Graham stars as Jamie’s father, Eddie.

Top Boy star Ashley Walters plays Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe investigating the case, while Doherty is Briony Ariston, a clinical psychologist working with Jamie.

Adolescence also stars queer Game of Thrones actress and Get Hooked star, Faye Marsay.

The bone-chilling show is filmed in one continuous shot, much like Graham’s BAFTA-nominated film Boiling Point. It’s co-created by Joy creators Graham and Jack Thorne and directed by Philip Barantini, who also worked on Boiling Point.

Erin Doherty will also star alongside Stephen Graham in Disney’s new historical drama, A Thousand Blows.

Adolescence is streaming now on Netflix.

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.