Gillian Anderson has revealed that she identifies as pansexual, saying she had relationships with women in her younger years and did not always have the language to describe her sexuality.
The 58-year-old actress discussed her sexuality in an interview with The Australian, weeks after describing a “secretive” relationship with an older girl during her time at high school.
Pansexuality refers to sexual, romantic or emotional attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity.
Anderson said: “In my younger years, I was in relationships with women.” She also spoke about women of her age rediscovering their sensuality and desire for sex, as well as being approached on dating apps by younger men.
The actress said her attitude towards sex became more positive after she starred in Netflix’s Sex Education, in which she played therapist and mother Jean Milburn over four seasons. “It all came from that character,” she said.
Anderson previously recalled that one of her first relationships was with “an older girl in high school”. She said the relationship “felt secretive and illicit and wrong” and that they had to hide it.
She added that a boyfriend later discovered the relationship and ended their relationship, but said she did not think she was gay because she had also had “a couple of boyfriends”.
“I definitely felt I didn’t have the language for it,” Anderson said. “Even later on when I had other relationships with women, I’m not sure I ever thought of them as being potentially for ever.”
Anderson, who was born in Chicago and moved to the US from London aged 11, has been married twice. She was married to production designer Clyde Klotz from 1994 to 1997 and documentary filmmaker Julian Ozanne from 2004 to 2006.
She has three children: daughter Piper, 31, with Klotz, and sons Oscar, 19, and Felix, 17, with former partner Mark Griffiths.
Anderson has been linked to The Crown creator Peter Morgan since 2016, although neither has publicly confirmed the relationship. In the interview, she said: “The person I consider my life partner happens to be male.”
She rose to international prominence after starring as FBI agent Dana Scully in The X-Files alongside David Duchovny from 1993 to 2002, later appearing in the 1998 standalone film.
