*Photo Credit: Michael Buckner for Variety/Illustration: EEW Magazine Online*

By Dean Andover // People // EEW Magazine Online

Oscar-nominated “King Richard” actress, Aunjanue Ellis, grew up in the Bible belt of Mississippi, where her bisexuality was not accepted.

But today the 53-year-old is speaking out about her refusal to stuff herself into a heteronormative box and is announcing to the world on her terms: “I am Black. I am queer. This is who I am.”

In an interview with Variety, Ellis said, those in her intimate circle already know she is bisexual, since she has been open about her sexuality with family, friends, and work colleagues for decades. But that does not mean Ellis has not faced discrimination and what she terms hurtful behaviors and comments.

Regarding family members, Ellis said, “If they come to New York, and they are around all my gay friends, they’re like, ‘Oh we’re cool.’ But don’t bring it to the house. Don’t be open with it.”

Photo Credit: Getty/Illustration: EEW Magazine Online

This lack of acceptance has been part of the Hollywood actor’s reality since she was eight years old and first realized she was queer. Even so, Variety reports that Ellis has long challenged societal norms. As a child growing up in Sunday School, she questioned what she perceived as misogyny in the Bible, asking, “Why does a woman have to be submissive to a man?”

“And then there was this other thing about me that I also didn’t understand,” said Ellis, who also played legendary choir director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark in Lifetime’s “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel.” As a teen, she said, she was not attracted to boys but tried “to talk my body into correct behavior”—something that was difficult for her to do.

“You literally have to tuck and place so many parts of you to be acceptable, so people won’t run from you and don’t want to be around you. It was exhausting. That’s what childhood was like. That’s what adolescence was like,” she explained. “I knew, but there was no template for it. There was no example of it. There was no place for it and certainly no forgiveness for it.”

By the time Ellis was in her thirties, she found herself in an 11-year relationship with a man she met in church, but one day, while hanging out with a female attendee at Sundance Lab, she had an epiphany which led to full acknowledgment of her bisexuality.

A personal and private moment of realization, however, was not sufficient for the twice Emmy-nominated veteran whose acting career spans nearly thirty years. Thus, she has come full circle by going fully public.

When asked why she had not revealed her bisexuality sooner, Ellis said, no one ever asked. Furthermore, while promoting “King Richard,” which might have seemed like an opportune time—as all eyes were on her thanks to a stellar performance—Ellis felt it inappropriate to disclose her sexuality and risk eclipsing the film’s promotion and hijacking the narrative.

“I’m not that chick,” she told Variety. “My job was to talk about ‘King Richard,’ the Williams family, these wonderful young women I worked with, Will Smith’s incredible work in that movie. I wasn’t going to be like, ‘And by the way, in case you ain’t heard yet…’ Because that’s artificial.”

And artificial is what Ellis refuses to be. Therefore, she can no longer settle for merely dropping not-so-subtle hints about her sexuality by rocking “Girl Bi” shirts or sporting the word “Queer” on her sleeve in rhinestones at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards earlier this year.

Hint-dropping has failed, and Ellis does not know why.

“There is an assumption made of me, a presumption made of me. Is it because I’m a Black woman from Mississippi? Is it because I’m older?” she wondered aloud. “I don’t know what the mechanics are that goes into them not processing.”

Some of Ellis’s unsuspecting colleagues in the past even made homophobic comments, until the fed-up star came out directly to them. “I was like, ‘Look, I love y’all. I appreciate my relationships and friendships, working and otherwise with all of you, but you need to know that I am bisexual,’” she remembers. “So, when you say things, when you have felt your most intimate with me that are queer-phobic, you are talking about me. And it hurts.’”

Wearing her queerness on her sleeve literally and figuratively is Ellis’s way of clearing up, once and for all, any existing ambiguity regarding who she really is, out and proud.

Those that look upon queerness with disdain must know that Ellis is intent on shining a brighter light on Black queer women onscreen and off despite their disapproval. Here’s why: “It is imperative that we see more of that, because it is the truth of who we are,” she said. “It is not a blemish on who we are. It is the wonderful scope of our humanity as Black folks in this country. It is something that I am insisting on in what I bring into the world creatively.”