'Baby Reindeer's Jessica Gunning celebrates Pride by coming out as a 'big old gay'

Jessica Gunning is not only the breakout star of this year’sBaby Reindeer, but she’s also officially an out and proud member of our rainbow family.

Gunning opened up publicly about her sexuality for the first time on theReign with Josh Smith podcast. Gunning explained her gay awakening was more of a process, which began in the most relatable way: Kissing Cate Blanchett. The two starred in a National Theatre production called When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, and the two shared a smooch on stage. “I should have known then. All these signs from pre-Reindeer staring me in the face.”

While this is her public coming out, she has been out privately for more than a year. 'I came out in November 2022. And that was a mega, mega thing for me because I for so long...I am surrounded by gays like all my friends are gay, so it wasn't that I was repressing anything, it was just that I didn't think that I could be,” recalled Gunning. 'I still can't articulate it in the best way.

'But I realized I was a big, old gay. I was like, ‘That's what it's been, that's what it is.’ And that was like a massive moment where everything kind of clicked and I made sense of myself then,” she shared.

Now Gunning admits there had long been signs that she was queer but for some reason, she wasn't ready to see them herself and instead, she founds ways of rationalizing her feelings. “Because for so long I'd thought, ‘I know I'm a bigger woman,” and I thought that maybe it was to do with my size that I felt a bit like almost alien or like I was tagging along,” she explained”'But as soon as I realized… [it] was like the most liberating thing.'

She continued, 'I kind of was "Oh, that's what this has been, it's like a little secret I guess I've been keeping from myself even". And not in a kind of hating way. I never felt I was repressing anything in a bad way, or that any reaction would be bad.”

And again said the signs were always there. “'In hindsight, I used to go downstairs and watchthe L Word, that's a bit of a giveaway. So some of those things I should have really put two and two together. I took my time.

But now that she’s out to herself and the world she’s truly feeling great. “It's been amazing, and very freeing and very grounding. I feel like really peaceful actually.” And we couldn't be happier to have her in the fam.