Actress Jameela Jamil broke her self-imposed break from social media to come out as queer.
The Good Place star has been outspoken against mental health, body-shaming and positive body image but she hasn’t said anything about her sexual preference until recently. She is being criticized because she didn’t come out until she felt pressured to do so because of her participation in a new show, Legendary, which fans said she shouldn’t be passing judgement on a form of ballroom dancing, “Voguing” popular in the gay community.
In her Twitter post, Jamil shared that she “never officially came out as queer because “it’s not easy within the South Asian community to be accepted.” Her father is from India and her mother is from Pakistan, cultures in which being gay is not generally accepted. She continued in her tweet that she “was scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping, over something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear, and turmoil when I was a kid.”
The LGBTQ community in India is still fighting for their rights and acceptance as human beings.
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She said she had hoped that her celebrityhood would help the show’s popularity.
The actress had been on a self-imposed break from Twitter, but felt compelled to explain her coming out and why she hesitated for so long.
In a follow-up tweet, she thanked her supporters and offered advice to other people who remain in the closet out of fear.
“Do it whenever you feel the time is right, as long as you think you feel safe. But feel no shame about getting it off your chest and know you are not alone.”
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