Source: Getty Images/Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty Images/Gilbert Carrasquillo
Janelle Monae is feeling comfortable in her own skin and opening up about her sexuality. The 33yr old Kansas native she knew that was into both men and women at the tender age of 8 years old.
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Monae said, “I was like eight. I don’t think I actually knew how I identified. I knew that I was attracted to women, girls, men, boys. I knew that.” She added that she was afraid to come out to the public out of fear of being shunned, saying, “I was terrified. I thought people were gonna say, ‘Oh, she’s doing this as a publicity stunt.’ I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to go back home and be at all the barbecues. I had anxiety. And a lot of it was just untrue. It was my fear of what people were gonna say. And I’m thankful that I didn’t allow that fear to get in the way of my freedom.”
Source: Courtesy of Atlantic Records / Atlantic Records
According to TheJasmineBrand.com, Monae said she did seek out therapy, saying, ““There were just conversations that I had to have with myself and my family about my sexuality and the impact that speaking honestly and truthfully about it through my art would have. I grew up in the Midwest….in a very small town, and I went to a Baptist church; to be anything other than heterosexual is a sin in that community, and growing up, I was always told I’d go to hell if I was. There was a part of me that had to deal with what that meant. After I had those conversations with myself and I saw a therapist, I had to be able to talk about what it meant to identify as bisexual. What does that mean? How would discovering that impact the relationship I was in at the time? How do I talk about it with my family? How do I go back to my church? The bottom line is I had to have conversations with myself and the folks that love and care about me, and realize they may not understand what it means for me to be a person who identifies as queer in this world.”
We are proud of you for owning your truth Janelle Monae!
