Orange is the New Black star Samira Wiley shows off her new girlfriend Lauren Morelli at the Emmy Awards

ONE of the stars of Orange is the New Black has effectively come out, holding hands with her new girlfriend after the Emmy Awards.

ONE of the stars of Orange is the New Black has effectively come out, holding hands with her new girlfriend after the Emmy Awards.

Samira Wiley, whom plays Poussey Washington in the hit series, made her first major public rd carpet outing with girlfriend Lauren Morelli, who is one of the writers on the show.

Their relationship has been anything but a secret with the pair posting selfies all over each other’s social media pages since they first started dating six months ago.

Morelli told Identities.mic that she only realised that she was gay in 2012.

“It wasn’t so much one thing, but the sum of many small details: how uncomfortable I felt around groups of lesbians or how I considered myself (shrug) a ‘not very sexual person.’ When considered alone, these seemed like little quirks that made me me,” she said.

Stunning ... Actress Samira Wiley attends the 66th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.

“Wanting to read a book instead of have sex is a perfectly reasonable preference to have, right?”.

“I went through it all on set: I fell in love with a woman, and I watched my life play out on screen. And now, as we are gearing up for the release of season 2, it feels liberating and appropriate to live my life in front of you,” she said. “Mourning the end of my marriage and the identity that I’d known for my entire life, I hadn’t yet stopped to consider that I was now a part of this community.”

Wiley’s character Poussey has seen her screen time beefed up in Season 2, much to the delight of fans.

Orange stars ... Uzo Aduba, Samira Wiley, Danielle Brooks and Vicky Jeudy in a scene from Orange is the New Black Season 2.