Portia de Rossi Said ‘I Just Didn’t Want To Be A Lesbian’, And Then Married Ellen DeGeneres

Portia de Rossi has not always been comfortable with her sexuality. She got married to her current partner, Ellen DeGeneres, around five years ago, so there was no longer any need to hide or pretend.

But she has revealed more about herself in a recent interview with writer James Lipton.

“When I really, truly came out was the [2005] Golden Globes, when ‘Arrested Development’ was nominated,” Portia told him. She then spoke of the beginnings of her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres:

“Ellen and I had been together for a month, and I was very, very nervous going to that, because I knew I was going to meet up with her after the show… That was the first time we stepped out together as a couple, but for me, it was the first time I stepped out as a gay woman, really.”

Portia de Rossi (40) has been very reticent until now to reveal very much about herself. She almost never talks about her former husband, sound engineer Mel Metcalf, to whom she was married from 1996 to 1999. He allegedly dumped her in favor of her brother’s wife

In the program, “The Conversation With Amanda De Cadenet,” she admitted:

“I just didn’t want to be a lesbian… I’d never met one for a start, and I just thought they were strange and that they hated men and they were very serious, and I had these ridiculous images in my head and there were no out celebrities or politicians or anybody that I could look to and go, ‘Oh, I could be like that.”

Portia managed to kept her homosexuality quiet until paparazzi photos of her and an ex-girlfriend, singer Francesca Gergorini, were published. She said, “I didn’t like people thinking of me as a sexual being, and I was just terrified that people would know that I was gay.”

There were some reports that DeGeneres was upset by de Rossi’s candid comments, but these have not been confirmed and are probably untrue.

Ellen spoke on her TV show about her relationship with Portia de Rossi to guest Kaley Cuoco, whose recent whirlwind engagement to tennis player Ryan Sweeting was keeping the gossip columnists busy.

“I know what it’s like, because you know, Portia and I met [and] we kind of moved in within two weeks, and we’ve been together for nine years,” DeGeneres shared. “When you feel it, you just know it.”

Portia de Rossi has come a long way out of the closet in recent times; maybe it will encourage others to follow her lead.

Like to see a video of the wedding? Here it is: