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The 33-year-old star of the franchise says, "I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all it was percolating."
It's been over 15 years since Twilight premiered, catapulting Kristen Stewart into the limelight after playing the trilogy's protagonist Bella Swan.
While talking to Variety for its latest cover Stewart reflects on her time in the vampire fantasy romance film franchise based on Stephenie Meyers' books saying she feels there was "a very Gothic, gay inclination" in the series.
“I can only see it now…I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”
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Stewart's openness with her queer life has turned her into a role model for LGBTQ people after she had previously spent years attempting to change the media's perspective of referring to her girlfriend as "gal pal".
“For so long, I was like, ‘Why are you trying to skewer me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? I’m a kid, and I don’t really know myself well enough yet.’ The idea of people going, ‘I knew that you were a little queer kid forever.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, you should honestly have seen me f--k my first boyfriend.’”
She took her sexual identity into her own hands while on the stage of Saturday Night Live in February 2017. Instead of allowing the media to have the news to break, Stewart used her monologue on “SNL” to announce it.
“It wasn’t even like I was hiding. I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person….It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview. ‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone,” Stewart told the publication.
On SNL she pivoted from President Donald Trump obsessively tweeting about her relationship with Pattinson in 2012 to coming out and being met with cheers from the audience.
“Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you’re really probably not going to like me now, because I’m hosting ‘SNL’ — and I’m, like, so gay, dude,” she said looking straight down the camera.
Stewart, who previously dated Twilight costar Pattinson and is engaged to screenwriter/actress Dylan Meyer. The pair started dating in 2019 and got engaged in 2021.
