Orange Is The New Black Star Outed Samira Wiley

Samira Wiley, a star of Handmaid’s Tale, says she was outed by one of her Orange is the New Black castmates.

In an interview in the Guardian, the Emmy-winning actor set to star in the National Theatre’s revival of Pearl Cleage’s play Blues for an Alabama Sky revealed that she had already come out to her parents when she was 20. But she didn’t have the opportunity to come publicly on her own terms, after shooting to fame in the Netflix series.

“I definitely did specifically not talk about it for a while, but people just assumed I was gay,” she said. She said that an unnamed Orange is the New Black co-star outed her in an interview. “I just burst into tears,” Wiley recalled. “My publicist got it off the internet in 30 minutes, but what’s 30 minutes on the internet? A lifetime. Obviously, no one cared. Everyone already assumed it.”

“It was mine. It’s not yours to give someone,” she said of her reaction. “I felt like they took something from me.”

Wiley has been married to TV writer Lauren Morelli since 2017. She also discussed her reticence to continue playing queer characters after her departure from Orange is the New Black. She played Poussey, an out inmate in the show’s fictional women’s prison.

But, she says, Morelli convinced her to take the role of Moira, an out lesbian activist, in Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale.

“When I think about it now, it’s a little naive to say, I don’t want to play gay, because that’s the heteronormative idea that we’re all the same,” she said. “Moira is a completely different, fully realized person to Poussey. For me, how powerful is it, to have a Black gay woman portray an actual Black gay woman on TV? I wouldn’t have been able to see that ever, when I was a kid.”

Wiley says she’s more enthusiastic now about playing characters how represent marginalized communities.

“I don’t think there’s any other choice for me, at this point. Like, I’m part of every single marginalized community. I’m Black, I’m gay, I’m a woman,” she said. “My country hates me! So, I do feel like it’s my responsibility, or it’s one that I’ve definitely accepted, to be a voice for all of my different communities.”

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