Kristen Stewart Talks Coming Out

In an interview with Happiest Season director Clea DuVall for InStyle, actress Kristen Stewart grapples with coming out as queer, artistic freedom and why she is hesitant to discuss Robert Pattinson.

PRIVACY

Discussing why she is becoming more comfortable sharing her private romantic life in public, and why she was private when dating Pattinson and others, she said: “Yeah. The first time I ever dated a girl, I was immediately being asked if I was a lesbian. And it’s like, ‘God, I’m 21 years old.’ I felt like maybe there were things that have hurt people I’ve been with. Not because I felt ashamed of being openly gay but because 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. Even in my previous relationships, which were straight, we did everything we could to not be photographed doing things-things that would become not ours. So I think the added pressure of representing a group of people, of representing queerness, wasn’t something I understood then. Only now can I see it. 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.”

She is currently dating Dylan Meyer, a screenwriter.

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Stewart also discussed the pressure she feels to be a spokesperson for LGBTQ.

She said: “I did more when I was younger, when I was being hounded about labeling myself. I had no reticence about displaying who I was. I was going out every day knowing I’d be photographed while I was being affectionate with my girlfriend, but I didn’t want to talk about it. I did feel an enormous pressure, but it wasn’t put on me by the [LGBTQ+] community. People were seeing those pictures and reading these articles and going, ‘Oh, well, I need to be shown.’ I was a kid, and I felt personally affronted. Now I relish it. I love the idea that anything I do with ease rubs off on somebody who is struggling. That s**t’s dope! When I see a little kid clearly feeling themselves in a way that they wouldn’t have when I grew up, it makes me skip.”

TURNING 30

It happened during shut-down. She said: “I woke up that day [April 9] and was like, ‘You need to get you’re a** in gear.’ I was drinking too much in the beginning [of the pandemic], so I stopped drinking and smoking. I’m embarrassed because it sounds really clich, but, whatever, it’s true.”

She can next be seen in Happiest Season. Stewart described the film thusly: “It deals with very poignant things that, for me, are extremely affecting and triggering – even though now the word ‘triggering’ triggers me more than anything in the whole world. [laughs] But the movie is so funny and cute, and I loved the couple. They’re both people I really felt protective of in different ways, because I’ve been on both sides of that dynamic where someone is having a hard time acknowledging who they are and the other person is more self-accepting. I [personally] came into the more complex aspects of myself a little bit later. I never felt an immense shame, but I also don’t feel far away from that story, so I must have it in a latent sense.”