Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning reveals she was celibate for 36 years before coming out

Jessica Gunning has revealed she was celibate until she came out as gay at the age of 36.

The actress, who shot to fame in Netflix's hit 2024 drama Baby Reindeer, explained how she didn't have a relationship until she realised her sexuality during a conversation with a lesbian in 2022.

Jessica, 40, said 'I've never been in a relationship before. With anyone,' adding that her work as an actor formed her identity at the time. 

'The characters I got to play, I felt like I maybe lived vicariously through a lot of them,' she said, insisting that she felt 'fulfilled' despite a lack of sexual or romantic connections.

'I felt very sexual, and I felt very connected to myself, so I was so happy in so many ways,' the actress said.

'It didn't feel like I was lonely. I lived with my best mate. I felt fulfilled. So I didn't feel like I was lacking anything.'

In the interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Jessica acknowledged that the one thing she was lacking was sex, and mused that her celibacy might have also been 'connected to size.'

'Maybe because I was bigger, I've always felt like — it's hard to word this because I don't want it to seem like I'm saying it in a negative way, because it definitely isn't, I didn't feel like an alien in a negative way — but it was like an otherness,' she said. 

'And the otherness, I suppose, looking back, protects me from having to go, 'I don't fancy men.' So I was just, like, 'Oh, it's not the time for me,' or whatever. And then, before I knew it, I was in my thirties.'

She added that since coming out at the age of 36 she's had two girlfriends but has remained focused on work, with her personal life milestone coinciding with her career-altering performance in Baby Reindeer.

Jessica will next star as as Dame Washalot in the film adaptation of Enid Blyton classic The Faraway Tree alongside Nicola Coughlan, Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield, which hits cinemas on Friday.

She has admitted that she relished the change in pace after landing the part of Enid Blyton's classic character the same week that Baby Reindeer was released.

'So then when we were filming, it was a very different contrast, in a good way,' she told Refinery29. 'I think it was quite a nice world to escape to.'

She will soon start shooting for her portrayal of Cass Elliot in My Mama Cass, a biographical drama about the Mamas & The Papas singer, adapted from Elliot's daughter Owen Elliot-Kugell's memoir of the same name.

It was announced this week that the actress has joined the all-star cast of Apple TV's untitled series based on Metropolis, from Philip Kerr's globally bestselling book series Berlin Noir.