‘Orange Is the New Black’ writer comes out as gay

Lauren Morelli, one of the writers on hit Netflix show Orange Is the New Black, has come out as gay.

In an affecting essay for Policy Mic, Morelli writes candidly about getting to grips with her sexuality while working on the comedy-drama set in a women’s prison.

In the show, Taylor Schilling’s character, Piper, is engaged to a man, Larry, played by Jason Biggs, but finds herself incarcerated in the same prison as her ex-girlfriend, Laura Prepon’s Alex.

The show’s scenario had obvious parallels for Morelli, who had married a man just months before she landed a job on Orange Is the New Black, but found herself coming to terms with her feelings for women while she worked in the writers’ room and on set.

Read an excerpt from Morelli’s essay below:

“I realized I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set. It wasn’t so much one thing, but the sum of many small details: how uncomfortable I felt around groups of lesbians or how I considered myself (shrug) a “not very sexual person.” When considered alone, these seemed like little quirks that made me me. Wanting to read a book instead of have sex is a perfectly reasonable preference to have, right?

But on set, these small moments came into sharp relief, and I found myself answering to an endless stream of cast members who peppered me with questions like a gaggle of kindergartners curious about their new teacher. “Are you dating anyone?” “You’re married?” “To a man?” “But you used to kiss girls?” “Do you miss it?”

I was finally forced to consider a question that had never, ever occurred to me before: Holy shit, am I gay?

Later in the essay, Morelli confirms she is “now out to my family, my friends and most of my co-workers on Orange“.

She adds: “Now, when I am in the writers’ room or on set, I no longer feel like I am stuck in the middle of two truths.”

Season two of Orange Is the New Black arrives on Netflix on June 6 – in the meantime, you can watch the first scene from the new season here.