Star of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer makes huge personal announcement

Baby Reindeer has taken the world by storm in recent weeks, and now the show’s star has surprised fans with an announcement.

Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning has made a surprising personal confession.

Gunning, who has taken the world by storm with her role in Netflix’s smash hit show, has opened up about the moment she released she was gay later in life.

Jessica Gunning has opened up about realising she was gay later in life. Photo: Leon Bennett / Getty Images via AFP.

The actor recalled coming out in 2022 aged 36, describing how she came to understand more about her journey and how she told her loved ones.

“I came out actually in November 2022 and that was a mega, mega thing for me,” Gunning said on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast.

“I’m surrounded by gays, all my friends are gay and so it wasn’t that I was repressing anything. It was just that I didn’t think I could be, and I still can’t articulate it in the best way,” she continued.

“But yeah, I realised I was a big old gay, and I was like, ‘That’s what it’s been. That’s what it is.’”

The actress described her coming out experience as “liberating”, and said one particular scene in Baby Reindeer ended up closely mirroring her own.

“That was a massive moment where everything clicked and I made sense for myself then because for so long, I’d thought, and I’m a bigger woman, and I thought maybe it was to do with my size, that I felt a little bit almost alien, or I was tagging along,” she said.

Baby Reindeer has become a massive hit for Netflix. Picture: Netflix.

“But as soon as I realised, I was like, ‘No, it’s that.’ That was the most liberating thing.”

She continued, “And there’s a really emotional thing actually in Baby Reindeer where Donny talks about sleeping for the first time at his parents’ house [after opening up about his ordeal], and I told my family in Christmas that year, and I slept for 10 hours that night.”

Gunning also went on to open up about her close “bond” with co-star and creator Richard Gadd.

“We’ve got a real special bond and [I] really care about him,” she said. “The effect that especially episode four has had on people watching, it’s just been amazing to be a part of and I’m so proud of him.”

Gunning went on to add, “I think he was really honest and brave in how he told this story, and he’s having people talk to him all the time about how they’ve opened up to family members for the first time and just think that’s just incredible.”