The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Layla Taylor came out as bisexual — and revealed she’s dating a woman.
“It’s just something that I honestly didn’t really know how to formally address for a long period of my life. … I’m gay and I’m bi and date women and men,” Taylor, 25, shared on the Monday, June 29, episode of the “On Purpose With Jay Shetty” podcast.
Taylor recalled not feeling ready to address those feelings when she was younger.
“Growing up, I didn’t fit in for a lot of reasons in my childhood. I grew up in a very predominantly white area, and being a little Black girl, I already stood out so much to my peers and took that on a lot more than I feel like I realized,” she noted. “I always had these thoughts and I kind of laugh about it now because I would be watching shows like Pretty Little Liars and I would watch, like, Shay Mitchell kissing a girl. I was like, ‘Wait, why is that hot?’”
She continued: “But I didn’t know what those feelings were because I didn’t have queer representation around me of [someone] I could look at it and be like, ‘OK, this is normal.’ It wasn’t necessarily that I had parents — or I was Mormon at one point — but I didn’t necessarily have that pressure to not do that. I just didn’t have people around me that modeled that.”
Taylor “didn’t know if it was just a phase” before she got married to her now-ex-husband, Clayton Wessell, adding, “I would just kind of underplay it for a long period of my life. [Now] I just feel like I’m finally in the era that I’m over not being truly myself and I’m over not showing every part of Layla to the world. I’m very proud now to be out.”
The reality star, who shares two sons with Clayton, credited her recent split from Mason McWhorter for helping her come out.
“I just feel like I just never was in a place that I feel like I could truly authentically focus on it,” she added. “Honestly, that breakup was like a blessing in disguise because I feel like now I’ve been fully able to just focus on Layla and just focus on who I truly am.”
Taylor revealed she is currently dating a woman — who she didn’t mention by name — after “liking” one of her photos on social media, which led to them getting in touch.
“[Women are] already more emotionally aware about certain things and very patient,” Taylor shared about how this relationship compares to her exes. “I feel like at least who I’m talking to right now, she’s just been very understanding and letting me take this at my own pace because it is just still foreign to me and it is so new. [It’s the] level of understanding and just being there for me.”
During the podcast appearance, Taylor was asked who in her inner circle knew about her sexuality. She confirmed that most of her loved ones weren’t aware — including the entire cast of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
“No, [they don’t know]. We’ve been — not in a bad place [with] any of us girls. [But] I know that there’s some friendships that are in different places than they have been in the past. I think right now we’ve just been kind of a little separate since just going on that pause from filming,” she said about the season 5 hiatus following Taylor Frankie Paul’s legal troubles. “So we just haven’t seen any of them in person.”
She added: “I feel like me coming out, it’s not really a text. I feel like I want to see them in person to let them know. So they might see this before and then I’ll talk to them in person the next time I see them. But yeah, for right now, no one from the group knows.”
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