Cara Delevingne says she identifies as pansexual: ‘I’m attracted to the person’
‘However one defines themselves, whether it’s ‘they’ or ‘he’ or ‘she,’ I fall in love with the person, and that’s that,’ says actor
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Louise Thomas
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Cara Delevingne has said that she identifies as pansexual.
Speaking to Variety, the actor and model explained that she has previously avoided using labels to describe herself.
“The thing is with me, I change a lot,” she said. “I feel different all the time. Some days, I feel more womanly. Some days, I feel more like a man.”
As for her sexuality, the 27-year-old continued: “I always will remain, I think, pansexual.
“However one defines themselves, whether it’s ‘they’ or ‘he’ or ‘she,’ I fall in love with the person — and that’s that. I’m attracted to the person.”
Pansexuality is a term used to describe being attracted to people of all genders, beyond binary male and female.
Elsewhere in the interview, Delevingne claimed that the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein once told her that being with a woman would hinder her acting career.
“Harvey was one of the people that told me I couldn’t be with a woman and also be an actress,” she said, adding: “I had to have a beard.”
A beard is a term often used to refer to the heterosexual partner of a homosexual person who feels compelled to conceal their true sexuality.
Delevingne recalled how being told to do such a thing by Weinstein impacted her.
“To me, the idea of having a beard was — I’d heard it happen before — I just felt so disheartened by it,” she said.
“Do you have a conversation with a dude, and they’re like, ‘I’m going to pretend to be with you but not really love you’? I kind of think when I was pushed more that way, I realised how much more I needed to go the other way.”
While the British model and actor has not previously used the term “pansexual” to describe herself, she has used the label “sexually fluid“.
In a 2017 interview with Glamour, Delevingne explained why the term is unique: “Once I spoke about my sexual fluidity, people were like, ‘So you’re gay.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’m not gay.’ ”
“I never thought I needed to come out,” she told Variety. “It was just kind of like, ‘This is who I am. Just so you know.’”
Delevingne also opened up about her recent split from the actor Ashley Benson, with whom she was in a relationship for two years.
“I’ve always felt bad for anyone I’ve ever been in a relationship with,” she said of the media attention she and Benson received when they were together.
“It’s very hard to maintain the normality in it. I think it’s why I tend to keep my private life a lot more private now, because that public thing can actually ruin a lot of things.”
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