The 79-year-old actress is openly gay and dating actress Sarah Paulson, 47, but insisted her sexuality is not the most important thing about her.
She explained to The Advocate: “If you said, ‘What is your sexuality?’ I’d say I’m gay. I really don’t like the definitions. I just feel like I’m a person. It’s not the major defining thing of my life. It’s not defining. I’m a human being. That’s defining. Do you see what I’m saying?
“[When I was younger] I was not asked and I would not have offered in all likelihood, certainly. I mean, I’m more free talking about my personal life now because people do speak very personally in interviews. But when I was younger, I didn’t have a big public marriage or relationship with children and a big public life. I just lived my life normally. I wasn’t behind closed doors.
“I don’t feel it’s very interesting in a sense and I don’t have any impulse to talk about it any more than if I were at a cocktail party. I would just start talking about my personal life. It’s like, ‘Who’s interested?'”
Why open up now?
Although Taylor doesn’t feel the need to talk about her personal life, she couldn’t hide her relationship with Paulson because the American Horror Story actress is such a huge star.
She explained: “Well, I’m a very private person, just generally. I would be no matter what my life was, but I was not private in the sense of hiding. I lived my life in public. I think I was about 29 or 30 when I had my first relationship with a woman, but I didn’t talk about it per se. It would never have occurred to me to talk about my personal life in an interview anyway.
“When I started to be known, it was just a subject that never came up in a sense that no one would ask me. I don’t know why no one would ask me, but they didn’t. And I don’t know what I would have said. It’s so funny. I can’t really remember any anxiety about that. I had not been in a relationship for a very long time.
“The relationship with Sarah became so public because she’s an enormous star and I was somewhat well-known. It became a news event and so I wasn’t going to deny it. Do you see what I’m saying? Other relationships that I had have not been with famous people. No other relationship I had would become a news event in that sense. When once that happened, there was no way not to just speak about it.”
Reuters
