Dove Cameron attends Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on 13 March 2021 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/KCA2021/Getty Images for Nickelodeon)
The Descendants star Dove Cameron has revealed that she was scared to come out as queer because she feared fans wouldn’t ‘believe her’.
In an interview with Gay Times, Cameron, who came out during an Instagram Live session last year, said she had “hinted” about her sexuality “for years” but was “afraid to spell it out for everybody”. She explained she was “really nervous to come out” publicly at first because of the possible backlash she might get.
“I was never confused about who I was,” Cameron said. “I felt like I wouldn’t be accepted, and I had this strange narrative that people wouldn’t believe me.”
She told Gay Times that she felt like she “could never talk about” her sexuality. But she said she felt like the “industry has changed a lot in terms of having room for people with platforms to be human and not be picked apart”.
Dove Cameron said she decided to come out after her lyric video for “We Belong” led to claims that she was “queerbaiting” because fans got the idea that the “song was a big LGBTQ+ anthem”. She said the controversy prompted her to come out on social media because she was “behaving like somebody who was out”, but she “realised I wasn’t”.
“When you are who you are, you assume people see that and then you realise ‘No, I have to come out otherwise people aren’t gonna know’,” she said.
Cameron said: “I went on Instagram Live and said ‘Guys, I really need to explain something to you. Maybe I haven’t said it, but I’m super queer. This is something I want to represent through my music because it’s who I am’.”
Since coming out, Dove Cameron said she’s had “such an unbelievable relationship” with fans. She told Gay Times that they have created a “very safe space”, and many fans have come out to Liv and Maddie star.
“A lot of my fans have told me that [their sexuality] because it’s such a non-issue with me,” Cameron said. “It wasn’t a big announcement. It was never something I really dove into. It was like here I am and here I always have been.”