Raven-Symoné thought she’d never come out in order to protect her Disney brand
that ex-Disney star Raven-Symoné thought she’d never come out in order to protect her Disney brand.
The View co-host spoke out in a new ‘It Got Better’ video that was released last week. In it, the 30-year-old revealed how she knew she was gay at the age of 12 but as the star of That’s So Raven, she thought the world would never know.
“Even if I got sick I probably would’ve been like, ‘I’m taking this to the grave.'”
She continues, “I never thought I’d come out because my personal life didn’t matter, it was only what was supposed to have been sold as ‘The Raven-Symoné brand.'”
When Raven was 4 she was cast on The Cosby Show as granddaughter Olivia.
“I knew I couldn’t say it out loud because, ‘Oh my God, little Olivia from The Cosby Show is gay? This is crazy!’ I had the number one show on Disney, I had multiple albums, I’d been on tour with NSYNC. People have bucket lists – my bucket list was finished at 18. I didn’t want to deal with that.”
As she went forward she thought she could live with a fake marriage to a man.
“I’ll have a husband and I’ll have a friend on the side so I can be happy, so I could have both taken care of.”
“That didn’t last. I don’t care anymore because I fell in love,” she adds.
Symoné came out in 2012 and then joined as a co-host on The View three years later.
You can watch the ‘It Got Better’ video below:
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