While looking back at her own rough experience coming out to her own family, Elea Fuller shared a very strong message: "Hearts and attitudes can change."
Fuller explained the difficulty of telling her parents that she was bisexual.
"I'm from a very famous and image conscious family. My family is very strict on their perspectives and their beliefs, especially my father." she said. "Of course there has been some Old Hollywood juicy scandals, but everything was good and very hetero and glamourous. I was raised with freedom but also felt this restraint that I had to amount to something that my family had put out there for several generations. Naturally being loud, outspoken and sort of going 'wild child' status, I told them I've had feelings for a female before and in the same way I have felt towards males. I remember in the beginning it was a lot of emotions and trying to find some other reasoning, them not taking it seriously and they thought I was testing them for attention."
She continued: "They had a very hard time processing it. That I was just this liberated young woman who didn't know acceptance from others or tolerance. It was a very binary way for them to process, good and bad."
Fuller has kept most of her relationships private but came out publicly in 2009 while she was married to musician, Derek Brand. Ellen DeGeneres asked her about her sexuality and what made her come out. Fuller said that she felt she had "genuine responsibility" to speak her truth and was hopeful to be part of a movement that has others feel comfortable to live and speak their truths as well.
"I was just honest about it. I didn't have the cleanest reputation in the industry. I could tell by anyone I spoke to about it, their faces. It was a big deal. A lot of people did not want this or anything else coming before my name. I attached myself to a label and I've never defined myself before, period."
Though not all of the reactions were positive, Fuller said it didn't stop her from having conversations about it. She said that her relationships with women were just as active in her personal lives as they were with men.
"I was out of my marriage and I was dating a woman. I asked my parents to come out to dinner. I see them come out with my dad look like some sort picture perfect image of a successful straight American man, accepting something he never had around in his life before. I never needed much from everyone else, just having my family there for me is all I ever needed or wanted."
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