Reneé Rapp’s Hollywood Reporter Interview Full Of Important Lesbian and Mental Health Related Business

Reneé Rapp is on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter today, doing the Lord’s work as always by being super candid and real and open! Rapp discusses touring, trauma, anxiety and ADHD, therapy, Beyoncé sending her flowers, leaving her regular role on The Sex Lives of College Girls, having relationships in the public eye and her desire to do more acting after taking a break from acting to do more singing.

Gen Z obsession Reneé Rapp dishes on her love for Justin Bieber, getting flowers from Beyoncé and how playing a lesbian on 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' changed her life: "I don’t see a character. I’m like, 'That’s me'" https://t.co/oSttXuqBcr pic.twitter.com/ewZpOp6XNK

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 28, 2024

Rapp reveals that playing Leighton in Sex Lives of College Girls helped her come into her own, sexuality-wise — that she’d go home, call her friends and stress about how she liked her boyfriend a lot but perhaps maybe only as a friend! She finds it “fucking crazy to watch that back,” and remember coming out on the show and to her family “who had no idea” that she was gay.

Rapp felt that the worldwide embrace of her storyline pushed others in her life to accept her, lest they challenge the national mood. “That [show] was the most parallel experience in my life,” she told The Hollywood Reporter, “and I remember doing that specific coming-out scene and not acting at all. At all. I was just sobbing. I see that and I don’t see a character. I’m like, “That’s me.”

When asked about her song “I Do” and if it’s about unrequited love, she said that she wrote the song about her best friend, Alyah [Chanelle Scott], who plays Whitney Chase on The Sex Lives of College Girls:

“…I don’t even think I’ve ever told her that I wrote it about her. But I remember being like, “I love you so much, and this feels so romantic in a platonic way, but I don’t understand how to explain it.” And I now know that it was so much more complicated in my sexuality. And I was like, “Wait, you feel completely different to me than a boy does, and I love you. So am I in love with you?” I’m like, “What the fuck?” And I now know that she’s just my fucking rock, and I just don’t think I like boys.”

Now, she’s making up for lost time, watching The L Word and But I’m a Cheerleader because she hadn’t consumed any queer media at all until three months ago. I hope that she has found Kate McKinnon’s Justin Bieber impression while on this journey, because she also said this to The Hollywood Reporter, when asked about her desire to be “the bisexual Justin Bieber.”

I’m a lesbian, but wow, do I love Justin Bieber. That boy is still cute to me, sorry. And he also, I think, has a similar [love] of R&B. He reminds me of a really sexy lesbian. Just the way he walks around and moves onstage and always has this demeanor that’s chill, sings his ass off, dresses really cool. That was just my pitch, and I got signed.

I went to a Justin Bieber lookalike contest at a dyke bar in San Francisco in 2010 and you know, that’s our culture, isn’t it.

Other Pop Culture Stories For Your Day:

+ Professional conductor Andrew Resnick on the quality of the conducting in Maestro and Tár: “If Lydia Tár is truly as great as everyone says she is, he thinks, her conducting would have been a bit better.”

+ ‘Poor Things’ Gets Hulu Streaming Date: the date is March 7th. I will of course remind you of this in the streaming guide on Friday!

+ Three minutes and thirty seconds of the creator of ‘Heartstopper’ talking about her work and demand for LGBTQ stories

+ A new study reveals that 1 In 4 LGBTQ Musicians Have Experienced Sexual Harassment

+ Original voice actress Auli’i Cravalho returns to Disney for Moana 2

+ Umm, someone made me a movie: ‘Glitter & Doom’ offers a fantastical whirlwind gay romance with Indigo Girls songs

+ Hollyoaks set to explore teen gender identity in trailblazing storyline for 12-year-old Rose Lomax

+ This isn’t gay (YET) but just wanted you to know that Shane’s ex-wife Quiara has been cast in a lead role on the Suits reboot!

+ Change is afoot at Tubi! They’re rolling out a whole new look in Los Angeles Lakers colors and also a little sound, so.

feature image by (Photo by Kristy Sparow/Getty Images)

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