Kristen Stewart was told her career would “go better” if she didn’t publicly date women, the actress has revealed.
Speaking in an interview last week, the Love Lies Bleeding star recalled being advised to keep her sexuality a secret by people she had “known, loved, and trusted”.
Stewart, 35, famously came out as bisexual during her Saturday Night Live monologue in 2017, eventually coming out as a lesbian a year later. She had been dating women for several years after her public split from Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson.
She told ABC News’ Linsey Davis that her relationship, and break-up, with Pattinson had forced her to reflect upon what she wanted in a romantic partner.
After she began dating women, Stewart said she received some surprising pushback from people she knew very well.
“I’ve had conversations with people I’ve known, loved and trusted, and still do, who thought, ‘Your career would go better if you didn’t go outside holding your girlfriend’s hand,’” she said. “I was like, ‘So you want me to live a partial life?’”
The star of course ignored the concerns, saying that she wanted to “make the world a more open and accepting place”.
“It was less about sharing the details of my relationship and more so acknowledging that there are people that don’t get full access to being alive because they’re hiding,” she said. “I just can’t do that.”
This isn’t the first time the actress and director has opened up about being told to stay closeted for her career, saying in 2019 that she didn’t want to “work with people like that”.
Since coming out, her career has certainly shown no signs of stopping, having won several awards for her work, including Love Lies Bleeding, The Chronology of Water, and Sacramento. She even got the chance to host Saturday Night Live again in 2019.
She is currently working on the upcoming stoner comedy The Wrong Girls, which she is set to write and co-produce.
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