Before jetting to the French Riviera this week for the Cannes premiere of her new film Café Society, Kristen Stewart made it clear there’s one thing she won’t be talking about in press conferences: the specifics of her romantic relationships. Stewart’s sexuality has been the subject of much media speculation since she split from Robert Pattinson and became linked to her assistant Alicia Cargyle. More recently, she’s been spotted with French singer Soko. And while she hasn’t been engaging in the probably-futile-anyway act of hiding from paparazzi, that doesn’t mean she feels obligated to put an easily digestible label on her sexuality either. “When I was dating a guy, I would never talk about my relationships to anyone,” the notoriously private actress recently reminded Variety about the Bella Swan era. “I feel the same way now. I’m not hiding shit.”
The César award-winner isn’t naive to the label-shunning movement currently gaining traction amongst young people including Lily-Rose Depp and Amandla Stenberg. “There’s acceptance that’s become really rampant and cool. You don’t have to immediately know how to define yourself,” Stewart says, though she hasn’t always felt this was possible. “I had to have some answer about who I was. I felt this weird responsibility, because I didn’t want to seem fearful. But nothing seemed appropriate. So I was like, ‘Fuck, how do I define that?’ I’m not going to. Plus, I didn’t want to fuck with other people. I didn’t want to be this example: It’s so easy. I don’t want it to seem like it was stupid for them to have a hard time.”
Stewart says she wants to become an advocate for the LGBT community even if she doesn’t want to pick a specific term to align herself with. “I find the movement that’s occurring to be so important, that I want to be part of it,” she says. “Me not defining it right now is the whole basis of what I’m about. If you don’t get it, I don’t have time for you.”
The actress’ refusal to pick labels is clearly going to grind a few gears, which is pretty cool in itself — progress is rarely made without doing so. Stewart seems to be aware of this too, at one point saying “And I’m very obviously …” before leaving her interviewer hanging. Good to she still has her brilliantly wry sense of humor.
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Text Hannah Ongley
Image via Chanel