Gillian Anderson is opening up about her “illicit” relationship with another girl.
“The X-Files” alum — who moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, from London when she was 11 — revealed that one of her first relationships was with “an older girl in high school.”
“It felt secretive and illicit and wrong and we had to hide,” she told the Sunday Times in an article published Sunday. “Later on, I had a boyfriend who found out and broke up with me.”
But Anderson, now 58, said she didn’t think she was gay because she’d “had a couple of boyfriends.”
“But I definitely felt I didn’t have the language for it,” she reflected. “Even later on when I had other relationships [with women] I’m not sure I ever thought of them as being potentially forever.”
Anderson has been linked to “The Crown” creator Peter Morgan off and on for a decade, but they’ve never confirmed their relationship.
“The person I consider my life partner happens to be male, but I think I would feel the same way if it were a woman,” she told the outlet. “I’d feel, ‘This is my life partner.’”
She added, “When I was younger, there were parts of my brain that thought [women] were temporary.”
The actress looked back at her childhood and said she’s been to therapy with her mom.
“I was getting into gay bars and dancing at 12 with a fake ID,” she recalled. “I had the conversation with my mum about the things that were allowed. I was such a strong-willed child she would say there was no telling me, and she’s right.”
“But next was a boyfriend who was so much older — I was 15 and he was 24,” she continued. “We were together for three years.”
Anderson has been married twice. She was married to “The X-Files” assistant art director Clyde Klotz from 1994 to 1997, and the documentary filmmaker Julian Ozanne from 2004 to 2006.
She and Klotz share daughter Piper, 31, and she also shares two teenage sons — Oscar, 19, and Felix, 17 — with her ex, businessman Mark Griffiths. The two dated from 2006 to 2012.
Back in 2012, Anderson referenced her past high school relationship with a girl and why her later relationships raised eyebrows.
“I was in a relationship with a girl for a long time when I was in high school,” Anderson told Out magazine.
“Then I was in a relationship with a punk rock drug addict,” she said. “And then I was in a relationship with somebody who was way, way older than me. Everything that that kind of anarchistic attitude brings — the inappropriate behavior it leads to — was how I chose to be in the world at that time, which was, you know, not what people did.”
Anderson added: “Based on how I chose to look, dress, behave, you know — the relationships I was in at the time were freaking people out.”
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