Actress Jena Malone Comes Out as Pansexual, Polyamorous
Actress Jena Malone, known for indie films as well as blockbusters like the Hunger Games series, has come out as pansexual.
Malone, 37, came out in a recent Instagram post with a dance video, saying, “I guess It felt like I was a heterosexual man in a woman’s body. I visualized his desires and placed them on to me.” That, however, “was never the whole of the story that was meant for me,” she continued. “So I’ve been learning a new way to tell it. Using words to guide me not define me. That my sexual identity has more to teach and to tell me. Finding words that feel more right to explore in my telling. Pansexuality. Sapiosexuality. Polyamory. A fuller spectrum of understanding that my story is demanding of me. And I’m honoring it today with this soft and sleepy little stretch of a dance. I love humans.”
Malone made her film debut in 1996’s Bastard Out of Carolina, based on lesbian author Dorothy Allison’s acclaimed novel, in which she played a young girl suffering abuse from her stepfather. Her other films include Saved! (2004), as a student at a Christian school who becomes pregnant in an effort to convert her boyfriend from being gay; The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), a family drama with Daniel Day-Lewis and Catherine Keener; Pride & Prejudice (2005), a star-studded Jane Austen adaptation; Into the Wild (2007), the fact-based story of a young man who flees his wealthy family for life in the wilderness; and the Hunger Games installments Catching Fire, Mockingjay: Part 1, and Mockingjay, Part 2. She starred with Riley Keough in the queer-themed indie Lovesong in 2017.
She discussed coming out with The Hollywood Reporter while promoting her latest film, Adopting Audrey, out Friday. “It felt so nice,” she said of coming out. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. The sexual journey is so beautiful. I mean, all of the identity journeys are so cool. I feel like I’m a little bit late to the game in being able to have less shame. I’ve been loving the process of learning more about myself and others through different terms that open windows, those windows then turns into doors and then I arrive at a place to find all this cool stuff out there.”
She has an accepting and queer-inclusive family, she told the Reporter. “My sister is queer and I grew up with two moms who were lovers and then they split,” she said. “My mom sort of became hetero again, mostly through an understanding of Christianity. And then my god mom married her partner of 17 years now. So, I have three moms and my dad who has been a hetero man all his life. I have the whole spectrum.”
