From blasting Donald Trump on SNL to dating Dylan Meyer, why Underwater star Kristen Stewart is an LGBTQ+ icon
The Twilight actress was once advised to hide her sexuality and has been scorned by Trump for cheating on co-star Robert Pattinson – but recently announced plans to marry the writer Dylan Meyer
It’s hard to believe Kristen Stewart is just 29 years old. The Hollywood movie star has been in 47 films to date, gaining her first real acclaim alongside Jodie Foster, in Panic Room, when she was just 10 years old.
Love her or hate her (which seem to be the only two extreme emotions people have when her name is mentioned), Kristen Stewart is a name you’ll be hearing for a long time. She continues to land major Hollywood film roles, including her latest release, Underwater. She’s half Australian (her mother is from Oz) and is the first American to win the prestigious French equivalent of an Oscar (she was awarded the César Award in 2015 for Best Supporting Actor for her role in Cloud of Sils Maria). But just who is this elusive star? Here are five things you may not know about Stewart the LGBTQ+ icon.
1. She was told to hide her sexuality
Stewart dated New Zealand model Stella Maxwell for two years, from 2016, and continued to date her on and off until August 2019. She told Harper’s Bazaar: “I have fully been told, ‘If you just do yourself a favour, and don’t go out holding your girlfriend’s hand in public, you might get a Marvel movie.’ I don’t want to work with people like that.”
She decided to ignore that advice and be herself. She was pictured holding hands with Maxwell and making out with her on a yacht in July 2019.
“I was informed by an old-school mentality, which is – you want to preserve your career and your success and your productivity, and there are people in the world who don’t like you, and they don’t like that you date girls, and they don’t like that you don’t identify as a quote-unquote lesbian, but you also don’t identify as a quote-unquote heterosexual.”
2. She doesn’t like labels
Stewart was in a highly publicised relationship with British actor Robert Pattinson, with whom she starred in the popular Twilight movies, but Stewart, who now identifies as bisexual, said she struggled to figure out her identity.
“I'm so lucky to live in this particular time of history,” she told The Economic Times. “If you were to look at kids right now, even just five years, seven to 10 years younger than me, they would find my sort of struggle to come to terms with identity and communication kind of silly.”