Later Life Celesbians: Stars Embrace New Love

While some celebrities embraced their LGBTQ+ identities at a younger age, others took their time and revealed their sexuality later in life.

Actresses Sophia Bush, and Niecy Nash are among the stars who have developed feelings for a woman after entering their thirties, forties and fifties.

's ex-wife Christine is another celebrity who came out as a lesbian following the breakdown of her marriage.

But what is it that's fuelling the rise of the later-life celesbians? 

A celesbian is a term for a female celebrity known or reputed to be a lesbian and popular within the community. 

The fact that gay marriage has been legal in the UK since 2014 and 2015 in the US means that societally it has never been easier for someone in this country to lead a happy and fulfilled life as a gay person. 

All this goes some way to explain why more and more women of this generation and older might leave men for other women: it’s just not an issue in the way it once was.

Christine McGuinness 

This week, Christine revealed she is looking for 'a wife' three years on from their divorce.

She and Paddy separated in 2022 after 11 years of marriage, but continued to live together in their shared home for the sake of their three children - twins Leo and Penelope, and Felicity. 

The mother of three, who has dated both men and women, this week branded herself a 'five star lesbian' as she opened up on her sexuality, sex life and love of 'Japanese bondage'.

She told queer icons Amy Spalding and Gareth Valentino: 'I would love to have a wife one day, not like a legalised marriage, but like a blessing, a celebration of love and all of that, I would love to just be saying, "this is my wife.”'

'[The double life] is ideal for me, because I don't want to bring somebody into my personal life too quick. I like the separate life. My family, my kids, my home is up there and then I come to London, step off that train, I can work, have fun, I can sleep in and I don't need to worry about everything.'

Christine added: 'I love a double life! And this has become a problem because eventually it gets to the point where, obviously, I’m quite happy at this, and then my woman’s going…

'[When] am I going to meet the kids? And “are we doing this forever?” And I'm kind of going like, "OK, I thought I did tell you that that wasn't going to change any time soon at the beginning".'

'I feel like it's always me that sticks to the plan. This has been a thing with all of the women that I’ve dated. I’ll always let them know my situation.'

Christine was married to Paddy from 2011-2024 and while they happily co-parent their three children together, she's clear that she doesn't want anymore children.

'I always make sure that that’s known.' she said. 'And that I don't want any more children because a lot of the women that I meet usually don't have children and they want children, whereas I’ve had them.

'So that’s something that I try and be honest about at the beginning to anybody that I’m even talking to.'

Christine got very personal during the interview and said she will only use new sex toys in the bedroom, fresh out of the plastic.

She said: 'I’m so serious. I went, "stop, no because you might be a Gold Star Lesbian, but I’m a Five Star Lesbian."'

A Gold Star Lesbian is a slang term for a lesbian who has never had sexual or romantic experiences with men.

She continued: 'I’ll tell you about this one date, well, it wasn't a date, it was when I did the whole hotel thing and not the whole date thing.

'Because I didn't want to ever just meet someone and it just be sex, but then kind of did find myself in a place in life where I was like, do you know what? I actually do just want to do that because I’ve been married, I’ve had situationships, I was single, I was celibate for six months, and with all of that, I just had a moment of, do you know what, I wouldn't mind just meeting up with someone and just seeing how it goes.

'So I got to this hotel and I’m thinking this is just sex, it’s fine. And she was a very, very beautiful, like that perfect, pretty, handsome, like masc stud type woman, really gorgeous, dark skin, like she had the whole, everything.

'And we didn't get straight down to it, but it was late, we just went to the bedroom, we sat down, she’s getting out her things, her accessories.

'While she’s putting it on, she’s talking to me, she’s showing me, we’re just chatting away and she said that she was a Gold Star Lesbian. So I’m like, love that, love a Gold Star Lesbian.

'I just think that each to their own and everything... So I was the giver for the evening and the morning, and I kept myself to myself.'

She added: 'But it’s what always happens and I’m always quite surprised, especially when it’s a masculine woman. I always expect it to be the other way around, but it just never is. It’ll always be me doing the most and they’re a pillow princess.'

Sophia Bush

Back in 2024 Sophia, 43, who is dating girlfriend Ashlyn Harris, revealed in a personal essay for Glamour magazine that she now identifies as queer.

The Chicago PD actress admitted that she is indeed 'in love' with Ashlyn, who she became friends with in 2019 then started a romantic relationship with in October 2023 after her marriage with ex-husband Grant Hughes fell apart and Ashlyn left her wife.

'I didn't expect to find love in this support system,' began the star who noted that her bond with Ashlyn was rare and beautiful. 'I don't know how else to say it other than: I didn't see it until I saw it.'

The One Tree Hill star also noted that she had told her previous partners that she was attracted to women.

As far as falling for Ashlyn, who is a former soccer player, she said it was a new frontier.

'And I think it's very easy not to see something that's been in front of your face for a long time when you'd never looked at it as an option and you had never been looked at as an option,' she shared.

'What I saw was a friend with her big, happy life. And now I know she thought the same thing about me,' said the star.

Sophia added that the road to her romantic relationship with Ashlyn was long after they met in 2019 and spent years becoming friends: 'People looking in from the outside weren't privy to just how much time it took, how many painful conversations were had,' said Sophia. 

'A lot of effort was made to be graceful with other people's processing, their time and obligations, and their feelings.'

Harris has two children with her estranged wife Ali Krieger, whom she split from in 2023.

Sophia confessed in the article that two months before tying the knot with her ex-husband she came 'close' to calling of the wedding, but admitted: 'Instead of running away, I doubled down on being a model wife.'

And when her one-year wedding anniversary rolled around she felt sick because she knew she was not happy and the union was not good for her.

Revealing what sparked the demise of the split, she continued: 'But after the wedding I found myself in the depths and heartbreak of the fertility process, which was the most clarifying experience of my life.'

The star detailed enduring endless ultrasounds, hormone shots, blood draws that left scar tissue in her veins and retrievals, 'while simultaneously realizing the person I had chosen to be my partner didn’t necessarily speak the same emotional language I did.'

Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster, 63, who came out as gay in 2013, was rumoured to have dated men early in her career during the 1980s.

She had been in a 20-year relationship with female producer Cydney Bernard. They split in 2008 and have two sons together: Charles, aged 27, and Kit, aged 24. 

After splitting from Cydney, Jodie married wife Alexandra Hedison in 2014 after dating for a year.

While they generally keep their relationship private, Alexandra has been seen with Jodie at red carpet events, including the 2024 Academy Awards.

Alexandra occasionally shares photos of Jodie on social media, and publicly wished her a happy birthday on Instagram in 2023, writing, 'Loving you is easy as cake.'

The actress opened up about her sexuality for the first time in 2013 during an emotional speech at the Golden Globes. 

Many interpreted her speech as her coming out of the closet, but she told Variety years later of people who saw it that way, 'They were confused!'

'While I’m here being all confessional, I guess I just have just a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public', Jodie said. '[It’s] a declaration that I’m a little nervous about – but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now. I’m just going to put it out there – loud and proud.'

After a short hesitation and plea for support she said: 'I am single.'

She added: 'This is not going to be a big coming out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the stone age – in those very quaint days when a fragile girl would open up to trusted friends and family and coworkers and then gradually proudly to everyone who knew her.

'But now apparently I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honour the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a primetime reality show.” 

Cynthia Nixon 

Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon, 60, is happily married to her wife Christine Marinoni.

The couple became friends in 2001 and started dating in 2004 after Cynthia's divorce from her husband Danny Mozes in 2003.

The star has said that she's like her Sex And The City character 'in every single way' because of the way her real-life journey from a long-term relationship with a man to marrying a woman has mirrored Miranda's.

When they met, Christine was working as a community organiser and educator at the Alliance for Quality Education. 

Cynthia, who has been a longtime activist and organiser, became a spokesperson for the alliance.

Christine was Cynthia's first relationship with a woman.

'When we started seeing each other, Christine kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to panic about what this would mean - to my career or to myself - as if somehow I just hadn't noticed that she was a woman,' she told Elle.

'And then she met my mother, and that was when she stopped worrying about it.'

But Cynthia's publicist wasn't so sure going public with her same-sex relationship was the best move.

'He just kept saying, "It's your life, and it's private, and that's it." And we kept asking, "That's the whole thing? We never move past that?" We're at the playground with the kids, and pictures are taken of us, and we say, "No, she's my friend?"'

Cynthia fired that publicist and her next one encouraged her to go public with her relationship.

The couple got engaged in 2009 at a rally supporting the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

They married on May 27, 2012 after gay marriage was legalised in New York State and welcomed their son, Max Ellington Nixon-Marinoni in 2011, who was fathered by Sex And The City costume designer Michael Growler.

Cynthia also has two children she shares with her ex-husband, Seph, 28, and his brother Charles, 22.

The star has revealed how Seph and Max are lucky enough to have four parents - herself and Marinoni and Mozes and his new wife - and they refer to all the women as their mothers.

Niecy Nash

Niecy Nash, 56, secretly married Jessica Betts in August 2020 and received a 'supportive reaction' from her famous friends 

The Claws star did not reveal her sexuality until she announced she had tied the knot with Catch Me singer with a post on Instagram.

Sharing a snap from her wedding, she wrote: 'Miss Carol Denise Betts #LoveWins'

Meanwhile, Niecy - who has Dia, 26, Donielle, 31, and son Dominic, 34, with her first husband Don Nash - previously revealed that she had never been with a woman before she began dating her wife.

She said: 'My daughters were like, "Wait what?" My youngest daughter, she reminded me, she was like, "Wait a minute mom, are you the same mom that was like girl, I'm strictly dickly?" 

'And I was like, "Wah, wah. Like yeah, but no."'

However, Niecy - who finalised her divorce from her second husband Jay Tucker in March 2020 - claims that her marriage is about Jesscia's 'soul' and not gender.

She said: '[My marriage] has absolutely nothing to do with gender and it has everything to do with her soul. She is the most beautiful soul I have ever met in my life.'

She added: 'I was not suppressing my sexuality my whole life. I love who I love. At one point in my life, I married twice and I love those people. And today I love this person. I’ve done everything I wanted to do on my own terms and my own way. 

'So my choice now in a partner has nothing to do with who I’ve always been. It’s a matter of who I am in this moment.'

Meredith Baxter 

Meredith Baxter, 78, launched her career in the 1970s, featuring in movies led by such top-flight names as Robert Redford, Jacqueline Bisset and Lana Turner.

But her ship truly came in during the following decade, when she held a main role on a long-running series that captured the cultural changes of the Reagan Era.

The program starred her as the mother of a precocious teenage boy, played by an actor who later became one of the top film stars of the 1980s and 1990s.

Two decades on from the end of the show, after having three husbands and five children, this actress left fans stunned by coming out as a lesbian.

In 2009, after three divorces from ex-husbands Robert Lewis Bush, David Birney and Michael Blodgett, Meredith went on the Today show and publicly revealed that she was attracted to women.

'I am a lesbian and it was a later-in-life recognition,' she revealed to host Matt Lauer. 'Some people would say, well, you’re living a lie and, you know, the truth is - not at all. This has only been for the past seven years.'

When she came out, she was already dating her future wife Nancy Locke, whom she married in 2013 after a romance that by that stage had lasted eight years.

Meredith continued acting on television in recent decades, appearing on series like Glee, The Young And The Restless, RuPaul's Drag U and Switched At Birth.

Her latest credit is the 2021 movie Genesis: The Future of Mankind Is Woman, an action comedy about a woman who is able to reproduce without sperm.