Amber Heard On Coming Out To Her Parents: ‘It Was Just Tears’

Amber Heard has been honest about being a bisexual woman for many years, but that doesn’t mean it was easy for her to open up about her sexuality to her parents. During a panel called Making Change On and Off the Screen at SXSW in Austin, Texas, Heard explained how her parents came around to her sexuality over time.

“I am from Austin, Texas. My dad is out of central casting Texan. Good Southern man, and I was raised in a religious home,” she explained.

“And being an outspoken lesbian, atheist, vegetarian, I remember when I told them about my relationship, that I was in love with this woman, and at the beginning of that it was just tears, tears.”

She continued “[They] didn’t know how to process it because, for them, it was being thrown into a binary system of processing it, negative or positive.”

Despite her religious upbringing, her parents were able to accept their daughter for who she is.
“Five years later, I was getting an award, and I asked my parents to drive out to Dallas,” she shared.

“And I see them sitting front and center and here I am getting this ‘gay’ award…My parents in five years, look at the journey. Attitudes and hearts can change.”

Heard, who has dated both men and women since coming out, explained her sexuality in a recent interview with Allure.

“I don’t identify as anything. I’m a person. I like who I like. I happened to be dating a woman, and people started taking pictures of us walking to our car after dinner,” she said.

“I [was] holding her hand, and I realized that I have two options: I can let go of her hand and, when asked about it, I can say that my private life is my private life. Or, I could not let go and own it.”