Jessica Gunning has recently come out as gay, she played Martha, the obsessive stalker of Donny Dunn, played by Richard Gadd on the extremely popular Netflix show Baby Reindeer (as if we needed to explain what this show is).
Jessica Gunning was a guest on the podcast Reign with Josh Smith where she opened up about being gay, how she came out to her family in November 2022, and how looking back to when she was younger the stereotypical signs were there. Like watching the L Word secretly for the plot… and wearing dungarees, with a backwards cap (classic early nighties gay).
On the podcast episode, Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning Comes Out As Gay: “It’s A Secret I Have Been Keeping From Myself” Jessica talks about how she came out and how it was a big thing for her (as some of us can relate to), “I came out actually in November 22, and that was a mega, mega thing for me.”
She went on to say, “It wasn’t like a was repressing anything, it was like, I just didn’t think I could be.’ ‘I still can’t articulate it in the best way, but, yeah, I realised I was a big old gay, I was like that’s what it’s been, that’s what it is. And that was like a massive moment where everything kind of clicked, and I made sense for myself then, because for so long I thought I’m a bigger woman, and I thought maybe it was to do with, like my size, that I felt a little bit, almost alien, or like I was tagging along. But as soon as I realised, I was like, no, it’s that. And that was like, the most liberating thing.”
“I told my family at Christmas that year, and I like slept for ten hours that night. Yeah, because I was like, oh, that’s what this has been! It’s been like 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. I just was kind of like, I didn’t think I could be.”
“I mean, in hindsight, I used to like, go downstairs and watch the L Word. I mean that would have been a big giveaway, I watched it for the acting, obviously, for the storyline.” (We hear ya Jessica, I think many of us can relate to this) ‘And I used to wear like dungarees, stereotypical I know, have a bumbag, and wear a no fear backwards cap when I was a teenager, so everyone around me, was probably like, when is she going to come out. And it took me 36 years.”
Although we know Jessica Gunning mostly for her Martha role, she has also starred in Pride in 2014 which was based on a true story of gay and lesbian activists who helped the miners and their families during the British miners’ strike in 1984. Jessica goes on to state that during the filming of that, “I mean, I should have even known when I did Pride because I would cry all the time. All the time, I found it so emotional. I should have really known then.”
She also goes on to say that she was in a play with Cate Blanchett When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other,…and then I did a play with Cate Blanchett, where I got to kiss her every night on stage, again I should have known then.” She didn’t know after kissing Cate Blanchett every night? She’s living out all of our fantasies!
If you want to listen to the full episode check it out on YouTube.
Love Team Nonchalant xx
This article was written by one of our creative team writers here at Nonchalant Magazine.
