Gillian Anderson honours “meaningful” high school girlfriend
By Ryan Love
Gillian Anderson has said that the woman she had a relationship with was “very meaningful” in her life.
The actress, who stars alongside Jamie Dornan in BBC2 drama The Fall, revealed in 2012 that she had been involved in the “long” same-sex relationship when she was in high school.
In a new interview with Event magazine, Anderson explained that she chose to speak out about the relationship because she wanted to “honour” her former partner, who had recently passed away.
“She had died of a brain tumour a year earlier and I had never really spoken about her. She was a beautiful person who was very meaningful in my life and I wanted to honour her instead of hiding my experience,” Anderson said.
“There was a point years after we split when she phoned to tell me to say she had been offered a large amount of money to sell a photograph of us together and had chosen not to do it. It was a very big decision because she really could have used the money.”
The former X Files star added: “I felt it was very important to take the onus off that type of relationship, to say this happened and I feel no shame about it.”
Anderson, 46, has since been married twice – both times to men – and has three children, a daughter and two sons.
> Click here to watch Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan in the trailer for season two of ‘The Fall’