Baby Reindeer star, 38, comes out publicly as ‘big old gay’-Asyia Iftikhar-Entertainment – Metro

Baby Reindeer actor Jessica Gunning has publicly come out as gay in an emotional interview (Picture: Ed Miller/Netflix)

Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning got candid about her coming out journey as she publicly shared she is gay for the first time.

The 38-year-old actor was recently praised for her performance as stalker Martha in Richard Gadd’s hit Netflix series Baby Reindeer.

She also recently reprised her role as community supervisor Diane in the third season of The Outlaws on BBC.

As she enters the limelight, the longtime LGBTQ+ rights activist has shared that she came out as a ‘big old gay’ to people in her life back in November 2022, when she was 36.

Talking about coming out, she said: ‘That was a mega, mega thing for me. I’m surrounded by gays, all my friends are gay and so it wasn’t that I was repressing anything.

‘It was just that I didn’t think I could be, and I still can’t articulate it in the best way.

‘But yeah, I realised I was a big old gay, and I was like, “That’s what it’s been. That’s what it is.”

‘That was a massive moment where everything clicked and I made sense for myself then.’

She’s the actor on everyone’s lips right now (Picture: Karwai Tang/WireImage)

She explained on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast that because she was a ‘bigger woman’ she felt a ‘little bit alien’ and like she was ‘tagging along’.

Until one day she realised ‘no it’s not that’.

‘That was the most liberating thing,’ she added.

Jessica admitted that after telling her family the same Christmas she ‘slept for 10 hours that night’.

She continued: ‘It’s been 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.’

For her, she simply ‘didn’t think [she] could be.’

The 38-year-old star found coming out a ‘liberating’ experience (Picture: Ed Miller/Netflix)

The actor, who has also appeared in Doctor Who and 2014 film Pride as future Swansea MP Sian James, explained that she used to ‘watch the L Word’ and ‘should have even known’ when she filmed Pride as she would ‘cry all the time’.

She added: ‘I did a play [When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other] with Cate Blanchett where I got to kiss her every night on stage again, should have known then. All these signs from the universe! It took me 36 years, but I did it.’

The screenstar has found the whole experience ‘very freeing and very grounding’.

She did however say she had to shift her mindset from seeing coming out as a ‘weirdly sexual thing’ like telling people you ‘like boobs’ to going ‘this is who I am’.

She added: ‘It’s actually really emotional. And some of my straight friends have actually said they envy people being able to come out because it feels like a celebration of who you are.

The Outlaws season three is her latest project (Picture: Alistair Heap)

‘And I think we’re coming into a time where we won’t ever need to really come out again. But when you do, it is so exposing. But it’s also really lovely going, “this is my soul”.’

She concluded by sharing her gratitude at her friends for being ‘amazing and supportive.’

In a recent interview with Metro.co.uk Jessica reflected on her star-making turn as Martha and her drive ‘to do the part justice’.

She explained: ‘In that aspect, I didn’t really let go of her until we finished filming. I couldn’t really put her to bed.

‘When you do a job like this as well, it’s long hours, and you’re there, and you’re in it. With this, emotionally, everyone was really invested… it does dominate your life… it took a while to, kind of, say goodbye in a way.

‘I was really sad when it finished, to say goodbye to her.’

The star also made clear she had no interest in watching the ‘real-life Martha’ Fiona Harvey’s viral interview with Piers Morgan given her and Richard’s ‘close connection’.

‘He said in the past that he didn’t want any internet sleuths to go out and try and find the identities of these real people,’ she told Radio Times.

‘He deliberately changed identities for a reason. But of course, in this day and age, it’s inevitable, especially with a show this big, that people are intrigued by who the real people are.’

Baby Reindeer is available to stream on Netflix. The Outlaws is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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