Wednesday night’s episode of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! saw former Miss Universe Australia 2020 Maria Thattil publicly come out as bisexual on national television to fellow contestant David Subritzky.
In a conversation between the two, Maria opened up about her experience when she was younger feeling bi-curious, but “buried that side” of herself and only dated straight people until recently.
“I haven’t told anyone this but I’ll tell you,” Maria said.
“It’s like actually nerve-wracking to talk about. So growing up I always thought I was maybe a little bi-curious.
“I only ever dated straight people but like growing up I did have crushes on girls I was going to school with. Even as I got older, I thought ‘I can appreciate an attractive woman’ and I’ve always been curious about that. I’m like ‘Is it? No, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not’, and just buried that side of myself.
“I just felt like, it’s just easier to be like ‘you know, I date men’. But before I came here, I was out at a party and I met a girl and we ended up hooking up, and it just felt natural.”
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph’s Confidential, Maria talked about how she “invalidated” her own feelings about her sexuality and held a lot of internalised homophobia towards herself because of the external homophobia she witnessed while she was at school.
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“I grew up having crushes on girls in school and just completely invalidated it because of religion and also because there were many homophobic sentiments in my school around being a lesbian, around anything other than heteronormativity,” she said.
“You don’t have a lot of bisexual visibility in popular cultute and so you don’t understand what it is.”
Maria Thattil also said that the chance for her to fully explore her sexuality came when she split from her last boyfriend a couple of years ago.
“Because we were in a monogamous relationship I couldn’t explore it but he knew and when we broke up, that is when I started exploring and dating women,” she revealed.
“Sexuality is fluid. It is very heavily judged and therefore people don’t come out so it is a vicious cycle. It is important not to box people in.”
We’re so proud of Maria for being open about who she is and hope she becomes a great role model for people who are looking to come out themselves.
Maria has already seen an outpouring of love and stories of people who felt comfortable enough to come out after hearing her story, and she has shared all the love on her Instagram.
She has been very vocal about questions people have had and comments people have made over the last two days, and has even started to educate some people on why it’s important to normalise queer culture and create safe and welcoming spaces for LGBTQIA+ kids so that they feel more comfortable within themselves and with other people. You go girl.
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