Talking with Flaunt magazine, the 23-year-old actress revealed that she felt comfortable coming out after experiencing an abundance of solidarity while marching at a protest alongside the LGBTQ community in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I knew full well that I was attracted to women from a young age,” she told the publication. “I felt that since I’ve exclusively been in hetero-normative relationships, it would be too easy for any outsider, especially the media, to vilify me and accuse me of faking it to get attention.”
Reinhart added, “That’s not something I wanted to deal with. But to my close friends, and those in my life, my bisexuality has been no secret.”
The Riverdale star previously shared in an Instagram Story back in June that she would be attending an LGBTQ for Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles that was meant for members of the LGBTQ community who were standing in solidarity with the anti-racism movement.
“Although I’ve never announced it publicly before, I am a proud bisexual woman,” she wrote at the time. “And I will be joining this protest today. Come join.”
The pair were first linked back in July 2017 and seemingly split for the first time in July 2019 before they rekindled their romance two months later.
Speaking with the publication, Reinhart also discussed her role as a public figure amid the Black Lives Matter movement. “I felt that I wasn’t doing enough,” she said about her activism. “And I felt that it was lame to keep reposting what everyone else is posting so I asked myself: ‘Okay, what do I have to offer?'”
“I definitely learned a lot from the conversations I’ve been having,” Reinhart added. “While it’s important to be an ally in this movement, Black voices cannot be muffled by other voices. This is their time to be heard. White people have to acknowledge their f—— privilege, which exists, and is very real. It’s important that we don’t just sit on our asses and let someone else fight this fight for us because it involves absolutely everyone.”