Riverdale star Lili Reinhart came out publicly as bisexual while announcing her intent to join in a solidarity march of LGBTQ+ people with Black Lives Matter. She invited others to join her at the march.
"Although I've never announced it publicly before, I am a proud bisexual woman," Reinhart, 23, wrote in an Instagram story posted Wednesday that featured the poster for a march in Los Angeles.
Her public coming-out coincides with the start of Pride Month amid the worldwide protests against police brutality sparked by the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade (and others who came before) at the hands of police.
Reinhart, who plays Betty Cooper on the hit CW series Riverdale, also appeared in the acclaimed film 2019 film Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, and Keke Palmer, who just made headlines imploring members of the National Guard to abandon their post and march with protesters.
In addition to her work in TV and film, Reinhart's collection of poetry,Swimming Lessons: Poems, is set to be published this September. She has also spoken out about body image issues, most notably at the Glamour Women of the Year Summit in 2018.
"I became hyper-aware of my changing body," Reinhart said of being under continual scrutiny in the public eye. "I could see the difference in my shape in photos and wondered if anyone else was noticing. I felt this strange, constant struggle of having to live up to the expectation of the appearance that I had already established to the world."
"I think about when I have kids in the future," Reinhart said. "Will my daughter be self-conscious about gaining weight? Will she feel the need to explain her body or justify it to anyone as it changes? Will she feel that same need that I do now -- to apologize to her peers and say, 'My body doesn't usually look like this,' or 'I'm just a little heavier than usual right now'? How utterly ridiculous is it that we even think about explaining the nature of our bodies to other people?"
