When they met on the set of Orange is the New Black, actress Samira Wiley – best-known for playing Poussey on the smash-hit Netflix prison drama – had been out of the closet for years. Writer and producer Lauren Morelli, on the other hand, thought she was straight – and had recently got married to a man.
The romantic and sexual relationships between female prison inmates are a prominent feature of OITNB, and Morelli began to question her sexuality during filming for the first season in 2012. For someone who had, in her own words, enjoyed “three decades of knowing [her]self”, it wasn’t an easy process. In a poignant essay for Mic., she explained: “I felt like my life was being rewritten without my permission.”
Morelli eventually filed for divorce from her husband, Steve Basilone, in September 2014. Shortly after, she and Wiley revealed that they were in a relationship – and now, the happy couple have announced their engagement in a very cute Instagram post.
Wiley shared a photo of herself beaming and flashing a diamond ring at the camera, while Morelli grins in the background. The image is captioned, simply: "Yes."
In the same essay for Mic., Morelli wrote of her coming out: “Now when I am in the writers' room or on set, I no longer feel like I am stuck in the middle of two truths. I belong because my own narrative fits in alongside the fictional stories that we are telling on the show: stories of people finding themselves, of difficult paths and of redemption.”
You can't say fairer than that. Congratulations, ladies!
Image: Rex Features
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