{"id":570945,"date":"2026-03-28T23:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T23:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570945\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T23:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T23:48:09","slug":"why-baby-reindeer-star-jessica-gunning-stayed-celibate-for-36-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570945\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning stayed celibate for 36 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baby Reindeer actress Jessica Gunning has revealed in a candid new interview that she was a virgin up until the age of 36 \u2013 choosing to remain celibate as she avoided examining her sexuality.
The 40-year-old Netflix star made the admission in a new interview with Sunday Times Magazine<\/a>, revealing that until the age of 36 she had not been in a relationship \u201cwith anyone\u201d and had instead focused on her work as an actor for much of her adult life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters I got to play, I felt like I maybe lived vicariously through a lot of them,\u201d she told the outlet. <\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very sexual, and I felt very connected to myself, so I was so happy in so many ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like I was lonely. I lived with my best mate. I felt fulfilled. So I didn\u2019t feel like I was lacking anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunning said that she thought her decision to remain celibate may have also been connected to her body size. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe because I was bigger, I\u2019ve always felt like \u2014 it\u2019s hard to word this because I don\u2019t want it to seem like I\u2019m saying it in a negative way, because it definitely isn\u2019t, I didn\u2019t feel like an alien in a negative way \u2014 but it was like an otherness,\u2019 she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the otherness, I suppose, looking back, protects me from having to go, \u2018I don\u2019t fancy men\u2019. So I was just, like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s not the time for me,\u2019 or whatever. And then, before I knew it, I was in my thirties.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told the outlet that since coming out as gay in 2022 aged 36, she\u2019s had two girlfriends, but still finds her career takes up much of her focus. Gunning came out more publicly in 2024, following the huge success of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer, which saw her play an obsessed stalker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came out actually in November 2022 and that was a mega, mega thing for me,\u201d she said on the Reign with Josh Smith<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surrounded by gays, all my friends are gay and so it wasn\u2019t that I was repressing anything. It was just that I didn\u2019t think I could be, and I still can\u2019t articulate it in the best way,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I realised I was a big old gay, and I was like, \u2018That\u2019s what it\u2019s been. That\u2019s what it is.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Read related topics:Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baby Reindeer actress Jessica Gunning has revealed in a candid new interview that she was a virgin up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2052,64,63,447,134,280386,90711,280384,280385,209012,62809],"class_list":{"0":"post-570945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-adult-life","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-film-sex-scenes","14":"tag-jessica-gunning","15":"tag-josh-smith","16":"tag-negative-way","17":"tag-nick-bond","18":"tag-richard-gadd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}