Happy Friday! Rebecca Black Self-Identifies as Queer

Rebecca Black, of early 2000s fame, has come out as queer. I can affectionately remember when my high school halls were filled with the sounds of “gotta get down on Friday,” less because Black was a lyrical genius, but more likely because that the song was light-hearted, catchy, slightly annoying, and had a surprising amount of production put into it for a thirteen-year-old who had never actually been “partyin,’ partyin’ (yeah).”

Black, now 22, came out about her orientation in a recent interview on a podcast called Dating Straight. “I actually went through a breakup during this quarantine,” Black told co-hosts Jack Dodge and Amy Ordman, later revealing that the relationship in question was with another woman and “pretty long.”

When Ordman noted that Black “just came out,” she got candid: “I made a conscious decision to not, like, come out. People started asking, and I just stopped responding. I’m still in the process, it feels like.” When asked how she identifies, she told hosts that ‘queer‘ is the label she prefers.

“It’s like the f*cking quarantine: Every day is different!” she told Dodge and Ordman. “It’s something that, over the past few years, I’ve obviously been having a lot of conversations with myself about. …To me, the word ‘queer’ feels really nice. I’ve dated a lot of different types of people. Like, I just don’t really know what the future holds. And some days, I feel a lot more on the gay side than others.”

She went on to discuss the difficulties with identity and self-esteem she’s held onto in the past. “Above all things, I just wish I could go back and talk to my 13-year-old self who was terribly ashamed of herself and afraid of the world. To my 15-year-old self who felt like she had nobody to talk to about the depression she faced. To my 17-year-old self who would get to school only to get food thrown at her and her friends.”

She went on, “You are not defined by any one choice or thing. Time heals, and nothing is finite. It’s a process that’s never too late to begin.”

Since her viral video in 2011, Rebecca Black has written and produced a large collection of singles and albums, including songs titled “Heart Full of Scars,” “The Great Divide,” and “Saturday.”  Wherever she may find herself in the days and years to come, let’s welcome Rebecca to the family with open arms, and of course, start jamming out to her almost-decade-old hit again.

Photo courtesy of Facebook.