Kristen Stewart Talks Coming Out as Queer and Opening Up About Relationships

5 Min Read

30-year-old actress Kristen Stewart covers InStyleโ€˜s November 2020 issue, to promote her new film, The Happiest Season. The film is a romantic comedy about a woman named Harper (Mackenzie Davis) who brings her girlfriend, Abby (Stewart), home for Christmas, though she hasnโ€™t told her parents that sheโ€™s gay.

Stewart says she personally related to the story. โ€œIt deals with very poignant things that, for me, are extremely affecting and triggering โ€” even though now the word โ€˜triggeringโ€™ triggers me more than anything in the whole world,โ€ she says.

โ€œBut the movie is so funny and cute, and I loved the couple. Theyโ€™re both people I really felt protective of in different ways, because Iโ€™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 donโ€™t feel far away from that story, so I must have it in a latent sense.โ€

Kristen Stewart InStyle

โ€œI donโ€™t want to aggrandize my own pain, because I know that othersโ€™ pain has been so great,โ€ she adds. โ€œLiving in this world, being a queer person, there are things that hurt constantly.โ€

Stewart opened up about her own experience when she was pressured to put a label on her sexuality.

โ€œThe first time I ever dated a girl, I was immediately being asked if I was a lesbian,โ€ she shares. โ€œAnd itโ€™s like, โ€˜God, Iโ€™m 21 years old.โ€™ I felt like maybe there were things that have hurt people Iโ€™ve been with. Not because I felt ashamed of being openly gay but because I didnโ€™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.โ€

While she doesnโ€™t specifically name her Twilight co-star, Robert Pattinson, she did touch on how notoriously private she was about her previous relationships.

โ€œEven in my previous relationships, which were straight, we did everything we could to not be photographed doing things โ€” things that would become not ours,โ€ she says. โ€œSo I think the added pressure of representing a group of people, of representing queerness, wasnโ€™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, โ€˜No, Iโ€™m fine. My parents are fine with it. Everythingโ€™s fine.โ€™ Thatโ€™s bullsh**. Itโ€™s been hard. Itโ€™s been weird. Itโ€™s that way for everyone.โ€

After coming out, Stewart acknowledges she felt pressure to be a spokesperson for the queer community.

โ€œI did more when I was younger, when I was being hounded about labeling myself,โ€ she recalls. โ€œI had no reticence about displaying who I was. I was going out every day knowing Iโ€™d be photographed while I was being affectionate with my girlfriend, but I didnโ€™t want to talk about it. I did feel an enormous pressure, but it wasnโ€™t put on me by the [LGBTQ+] community. People were seeing those pictures and reading these articles and going, โ€˜Oh, well, I need to be shown.โ€™ I was a kid, and I felt personally affronted.โ€

And now how does Stewart feel about being openly gay? โ€œNow I relish it,โ€ she says. โ€œI love the idea that anything I do with ease rubs off on somebody who is struggling. That sh**โ€™s dope! When I see a little kid clearly feeling themselves in a way that they wouldnโ€™t have when I grew up, it makes me skip.โ€