Aunjanue Ellis, an Oscar candidate, walked the golden carpet to accept her award at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards on March 24. The word “Queer” was etched out in diamonds on the left arm of her red-hot Dolce & Gabbana suit jacket.
But no one asked Ellis about it on the press queue outside the Beverly Wilshire hotel. Nobody else in the ballroom did either. Perhaps they were preoccupied with her barnburner of a speech accepting one of the afternoon’s honors, but the “King Richard” star has a different theory.
“I was thinking, ‘Why didn’t more people pay attention to that?’ And I was like, they probably thought it said ‘Queen,’” she says over Zoom to Variety, laughing heartily. “It wasn’t that I was expecting any sort of major reaction or anything like that. One of my family members noticed, but nobody else did.”
Ellis, 53, has been upfront about her sexuality to her friends and family in Mississippi, as well as the people she has worked with, for decades. They told Ellis, however, that they were “hurt” by her decision to freely and publicly proclaim her sexuality.
“I am a work in progress,” Ellis says, adding that his family and community are as well. “I really believe that that is important to say because I’m not alone. We see people on the other side of it, where everybody’s good and fine: ‘Love is love.’”
However, Ellis’ experience has been different, having grown up in a God-fearing family in the Bible Belt. “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.”
Ellis has had to deal with the possibility of rejection since she discovered she was queer at the age of eight. She recalls being the kid in Sunday school who questioned biblical misogyny, 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.” Ellis recalls trying to “lecture my body into correct behavior” one summer when she was a teenager, trying to train herself to be attracted to boys.
“It’s violent because the alone is so lonely,” she explains. “It’s violent because you have to literally tuck and position so many aspects of yourself to be acceptable so people don’t run away and don’t want to be around you.” It was draining. That’s how it was when I was a kid. That was the experience of adolescence. I was aware of [my sexuality], but there was no model for it, no example of it, no place for it, and certainly no forgiveness.”
Ellis, who has been in an 11-year relationship with a man she met at church, didn’t completely embrace her bisexuality until she was in her 30s. It happened while another female participant and I were going around the Sundance Lab grounds.
She recalls, “We were just spending time talking and hanging out.” “We were walking by this stream — one of those streams in Utah where it snows once and then turns into a beautiful, clear, clear stream — and there was a moment when the sun was shining down on the water, and I was looking down in the water, and it was so clear, and all I could hear behind me was this woman’s voice.” ‘This is how I’m meant to feel,’ I explained. ‘This is the feeling I’ve been yearning for my entire life.’
She was aware, however, that being out would have personal ramifications and repercussions, she claims. But she was also aware that she wasn’t concealing it.
“I am public about the way I live my life, around the people I live my life with,” Ellis explains. “I’m extremely open about the fact that I’m bisexual. “I have a ‘Girl Bi’ sweater that I wear everywhere.”
“Nobody asked,” Ellis adds with a grin when asked why her sexuality hasn’t been brought up in the media sooner.
Despite the fact that last year’s awards season brought Ellis some of the most attention she’s ever gotten in her nearly 30-year, twice Emmy-nominated career, putting her through a flurry of red carpets, cocktail parties, panels, and interviews, her personal life was never truly discussed.
She explains, “How do you work that into the conversation, in the middle of me talking about this movie?” “I’m not that kind of girl.” My role was to talk about ‘King Richard,’ the Williams family, these amazing young women I worked with, and Will Smith’s amazing performance in the film. ‘And by the way, in case you haven’t heard…’ I wasn’t going to say. “Because that’s unnatural.”
So, ahead of the Essence Awards, Ellis enlisted the help of stylists Wayman and Micah to personalize her suit jacket, just as they had done with her Critics’ Choice Awards gown and would do for the Oscars. (The words “Jax Baby” were stitched on both, a memorial to her late mother Jacqueline.)
