Grammy-nominated singer Janelle Monáe opened up about their sexuality in a new interview.
When it comes to LGBTQ+ icons, the Make Me Feel artist is definitely on that list.
Since the early 2010s, the talented singer-songwriter has used their music to create a safe space and liberate the LGBTQ+ community.
Alongside their continued activism and support for her queer fans, Monáe has also opened up about their own sexuality.
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, the Moonlight star revealed that they were pansexual.
“Being a queer black woman in America, someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be a free-ass motherf***er,” she said.
“I read about pansexuality and was like, ‘Oh, these are things that I identify with too.'”
In a recent interview with the LGBTQ&A podcast, the I Like That singer opened up about her groundbreaking coming-out moment.
When asked if she felt “rushed” to reveal her sexuality, Monáe responded: “No. Nobody tells me what to do. I mean, I knew what I wanted to say. I’m still a super private person.”
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She continued: “I have no interest in releasing who I’m dating or not dating, that’s not important. But what I did feel was important that that representation of what it meant to live in your truth, regardless of friends or family supporting it, regardless of people having opinions, it was really more so for me, it was like, I need to say this out loud.”
Monáe also discussed the response they received after the Rolling Stone interview was released – which spawned an uptick in searches for the word pansexual.
“Yeah, it was trending for a while. I even had people calling me like, ‘What is a pansexual? Okay, I think I might be pansexual,'” they said.
“The conversations that we were having, even people thinking that I literally slept with pans and pots in my kitchen. I was like, what kind of… oh my goodness. But it was great that people were learning.”
Rounding out their interview, Monáe was asked if her coming out changed the way she views her music, to which she agreed.
“Yeah. I think so. Yeah. But I like to say coming in. I invited graciously people to a part of my life and who I was,” they said.
“I didn’t need to be accepted. I didn’t need to feel supported even. I was already good with that, and I invited everybody into where I was at the time.”
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