BANG Showbiz
Dove Cameron didn’t think people would “believe” her if she came out as queer.
The 25-year-old actress and singer spoke about her sexuality during an Instagram live session last year, and has now said she was never “confused” about her identity, but was afraid to come out sooner because she thought people wouldn’t believe her.
She said: “I was never confused about who I was. I felt like I wouldn’t be accepted and I had this strange narrative that people wouldn’t believe me.
“I hope it helps, that’s why I came out. It felt like something that I could never talk about. I feel like the industry has changed a lot in terms of having room for people with platforms to be human and not to be picked apart. I was really nervous to come out and, one day, I dropped it because I was behaving like somebody who was out and I realised I wasn’t. When you are who you are, you assume people see that and then you realise, ‘No, I have to come out otherwise people aren’t gonna know.’”
Dove was prompted to come out publicly when she released the lyric video for her song ‘We Belong’, as she was accused of “queerbaiting” for including drawings of two women kissing.
She explained: “I’ve hinted about my sexuality for years while being afraid to spell it out for everybody. I did a lyric video last year, for ‘We Belong.’ It had moving line drawings of people falling in love … it was all a man and a woman making out and it was a weird moment for me. It was so bizarre that I had to ask to mix in different orientations. People started asking for hints about the video and I used different combinations of emoji couples making out.
“When the song came out, everybody got the idea that the song was a big LGBTQ+ anthem song and I found myself in this position where everyone thought I was queerbaiting.”
And the ‘Descendants’ star then chose to take to Instagram to let her fans know the real reason she included the animated scenes.
She told Gay Times magazine: “I went on Instagram Live and said ‘Guys, I really needed to explain something to you. Maybe I haven’t said it, but I’m super queer. This is something I want to represent through my music because it’s who I am.’”
