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Reneé Rapp reveals she dealt with internalized homophobia after coming out on SNL
The Mean Girls star says that coming out as lesbian in a skit was a last minute decision.
Mean Girls star Reneé Rapp may seem confident about her own sexuality, but she admits that she still deals with “homophobic thoughts” about herself.
The pop singer publicly identified as bisexual until January when she appeared as the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live alongside host Jacob Elordi and used a skit she appeared in to come out as a lesbian.
During the “Entertainment Tonight Lip-Readers” sketch, Rapp official came out while playing herself when cast member Bowen Yang introduced her as his “little lesbian intern.”
While the skit was funny, the aftermath was hard for Rapp to deal with because of the internalized homophobia she still struggles with.
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In an interview with Them, Rapp explained that the line was “bisexual intern” in the original script, but she asked nonbinary SNL writer Celeste Kim if they could change it even though she was afraid of upsetting people. She didn’t want anyone to think she was invalidating the experience of people who identify as bisexual or gay.
“They were so sweet — and obviously, they were going to be so sweet,” Rapp confided. “But to me, I was thinking about being so afraid to publicly change my identity. I didn’t want anybody to be upset with me.”
She first asked if the line in the skit could be changed to “gay intern” before finally getting up the courage to ask for it to be “lesbian intern” — she had already been identifying as a lesbian in her private life — after talking to a friend about it.
The 24-year-old “Pretty Girls” singer was “terrified” of people’s reaction to her coming out a second time and changing her identity. “I stayed off my phone for a couple days because I was so fucking terrified and felt so shitty but then it was just, like, a thing, and it felt good,” she said.
On top of wading through the public’s reaction to the news, Rapp was also learning to accept herself. “I still have incredibly homophobic thoughts toward myself constantly,” she said.
“‘Lesbian’ was not a good word for me to hear as a kid,” she continued, “and now it’s something that I have such a close emotional connection to.”
In March, Rapp stood up for herself and addressed some of the negative reactions she’s gotten from the public. “If I say I’m a lesbian I am a lesbian and if someone says they’re bi they are bi I’ve had enough of you witches,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
