Orange Is The New Black star Samira Wiley has spoken out about how 'falling in love' with her character Poussey helped her love herself.
The Emmy Award-winning actress previously struggled with her identity after she was accidentally 'outed' by one of her co-stars.
However, it was through playing lesbian character Poussey that Samira finally felt comfortable to talk openly and publicly about her sexuality.
"I think falling in love with Poussey, which is a real thing that happened to me, helped me fall in love with myself," she told the Nancy podcast.
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Samira had her sexuality scrutinised when one of her OITNB co-stars name-checked her as a member of the LGBTQ+ community a few years ago.
"First season, I wasn't out at all. Someone from my cast, actually, they were doing an interview when they were talking about out gay actors in the cast and they mentioned my name and I saw it in print and I cried, I cried a lot," she revealed.
"And I, like, tried to get it taken down and, look, I had a journey, you guys, it was not all always super open-hearted and like I'm a gay, gaymo."
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Samira married Orange Is The New Black writer Lauren Morelli last year. They got engaged months after Poussey was written out of the Netflix original in the most heartbreaking storyline.
Lauren previously spoke about realising she was gay while writing the hit series, in an open essay on Identities.Mic.
"I realised I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set," she wrote.
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"Accordingly, I was nervous about the first love scene I'd written for Alex and Piper. I loved writing it, loved watching a tenderness emerge in their relationship where passion always seemed to be the ruling principle, but by that time, I was so deep in my own self-doubt that I constantly felt like a fraud."
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