Raven-Symoné wasn't ready to come out as gay until a co-star gave her the push she needed to muster up the courage.
The 36-year-old looks back on her journey to being openly gay in a new interview with Them, a website focused on LGBTQ+ issues. The actor credits her "Sister Act" co-star Demond Green with encouraging her to share her story.
“I remember he sat me down once and he was like, ‘You’re going to have to come out.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not,’” she explained.
When Green told the actor that he had watched her grow up onscreen, the conversation turned to the topic of role models and the fact that there weren't many openly gay role models in pop culture at the time.
“I’m like, ‘I didn’t have any role models either.’ Like who did I have to look up to?” she said her conversation with Green went at the time. “No offense, Ellen (DeGeneres) back then, (coming out) didn’t go so well for her. And so all of those moments just did not lead up to a safe environment for me to come out.”
But Green inspired her to be a source of inspiration for her followers and said she could make a difference if she was truthful about her sexuality.
“And (I was) like, ‘Why (do) I gotta be the martyr? That’s not fair,’” the actor said at the time. “I didn’t like having that conversation with him.”
Fast-forward to Aug. 2, 2013, and the star suddenly tweeted the following message to her fans: "I can finally get married! Yay government! So proud of you."
While it was a momentous tweet in hindsight, Raven-Symoné revealed she posted it on a whim while waiting outside of a fried chicken restaurant. Once she went inside to meet her then-girlfriend, AzMarie Livingston, her phone started blowing up.
“I’d been in a relationship with Az already and I was retired. I wasn’t working. You could not find me other than on my Instagram, so I was like, ‘I’m not coming back. I don’t have to worry about it,’” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to come back to the industry because I was retired.”
The actor got lots of positive feedback from her fans, with many of them thanking her for her honesty. But she always makes sure to credit Green for his assistance.
“He sat me down and told me that if I’m going to be in the position I’m in with the name that I have, there (are) certain things that I’m going to have to do that I don’t want to do,” she said.
Raven-Symoné, who married Miranda Maday in 2020, explained that she was "aware of" her queerness while filming her hit Disney series, "That's So Raven."
“However, I was in a relationship with a guy who I would tell on a regular basis, ‘If we get married, you know I got to have a girlfriend right?’ Literally, I was like, ‘This is not going to just be us, right?’” she recalled.
When the star met her now-wife years later at a karaoke night, the pair instantly clicked.
"We had a lot in common. Even though she was never in the industry in front of the camera she's been in the industry behind the scenes her whole entire life as well, since she was like 3," she said. "She was always involved in Hollywood."
The pair spent lockdown together during the COVID-19 pandemic and got even closer.
"My sexuality marinated in itself and started to change a little bit more and she was there," she said. "It feels so good to be able to know you have someone there for you but you can still go out into the world (and be independent, too)."