The actor has a new memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, coming out on May 12, and in advance of the book's release she revealed in an interview with Us Weekly that she identifies as bisexual.
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“Now that I know that this book is coming out, and that I’ve chosen to share it with the world, I’m comfortable to confidently say that yes, I am bisexual,” she said. “I said it! This is the first time I got to say it out loud.”
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Hayden, who is 36, explained that she waited to come out for a while because it never felt like "the right time." “It was either I was too young, and I was being forced to be perfect at all times," she said. "I was not encouraged to just be myself. Then came the period where it felt like people coming out, especially women, saying that they were bisexual or liked girls, was a fad.”
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“I was afraid that if I was honest, it was going to be like me jumping on the bandwagon. It was a very difficult topic to articulate properly. It’s sad I had to wait until I was 36 years old to share that part of me, but better late than never, right?”
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Hayden also explained that she's dated women in her private life, but doing so has presented challenges in its own right because of the public nature of being a celebrity. “It was scary because there were paparazzi always waiting for me outside, to follow me everywhere. I had very little privacy. I have dated women. I was much more into women even as a child than I was men.”
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“I have explored it, but because I hadn’t shared this with anybody, I didn’t really have the courage to throw myself fully emotionally into it. Because then if I did fall in love, that wasn’t something that I wanted to ever have to hide.”
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Well, congrats to her for finally living her truth for the whole world to see. You can preorder her book here.