Elvira, Mistress of the Dark reveals she’s been in a relationship with a woman for 19 years

Elvira has discussed her relationship in her new memoir (Picture: Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty Images)

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark has come out as part of the LGBTQ+ community by revealing she has been in a relationship with a woman for 19 years.

The goth icon, real name Cassandra Peterson, opened up on her sexuality and relationship in her new memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, calling partner Teresa ’T’ Wierson an ‘angel’.

Cassandra first met the ‘dark and brooding’ Teresa at her Hollywood gym, but first believed her to be a man, writing: ‘A typical sexy bad boy, he was unaware he was so charismatic that he’d garnered his own unofficial fan club. Watching him from the safety of my treadmill made my heart beat faster and the time pass much more quickly.’

The pair struck up a close friendship as Teresa became her trainer over the next six years.

However, their relationship evolved after Cassandra – who was previously romantically linked to Elvis Presley and Tom Jones – split from her husband of 22 years Mark Pierson, as the Elvira’s Movie Macabre host came to terms with raising their daughter Sadie alone.

Teresa moved in with her, which Cassandra called a ‘huge relief’, and she soon felt romantic feelings towards her friend.

Cassandra began to feel romantic feelings towards her friend (Picture: J. Strauss/FilmMagic)

The 70-year-old wrote: ‘After coming home from a movie, I told her goodnight and suddenly felt compelled to kiss her — on the mouth. As shocked as she was, I think I was even more surprised.

‘What the hell was I doing? I’d never been interested in women as anything other than friends. I felt so confused. This just wasn’t me! I was stunned that I’d been friends with her for so many years and never noticed our chemistry. How could I have missed it? Was it the male energy she exuded that attracted me? Her intense green eyes? Or just my own loneliness?’

Cassandra soon realised, though, that she connected with Teresa ‘sexually in a way I’d never experienced, and after a while it became clear I was falling in love with this beautiful, androgynous creature who’d appeared on my doorstep, like an angel, just when I needed someone most.’

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The couple are still together 19 years on, and Cassandra explained that she kept their relationship a secret to ‘protect’ the character of Elvira and keep her career alive.

She said: ‘Elvira has always had a thing for men, and men have a thing for her, so I worried that if I announced I was no longer living the “straight life”, my fans would feel lied to, call me a hypocrite, and abandon me.

‘Would my fans hate me for not being what they expected me to be? I’m very aware that there will be some who will be disappointed and maybe even angry, but I have to live with myself, and at this point in my life, I’ve got to be truthful about who I am.’

While she may have been nervous about the reaction, Cassandra’s fans have celebrated her coming out, with some calling the news a ‘huge win for the gays’.

The star was pretty much a camp icon anyway, thanks to her super-sexy alter ego of Elvira.

Dressed in a plunging black dress with trademark cleavage and wearing a black wig with a beehive bump, Elvira introduced horror B-movies on Elvira’s Movie Macabre from 1981 until 1986 with her signature Valley Girl speak.

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