The 33-year-old actress felt forced into opening up about her sexuality after she was slammed with criticism for joining the new TV show 'Legendary' - a competition focused on ballroom culture and voguing - as many people thought the panel should be exclusively made up of queer people to reflect the show's themes.
And now, Jameela has said the momentary “outburst” was “not handled well”, as she admitted she would have preferred to come out “at a different time”.
She explained: “It was just an outburst. That was not well handled. I’m just human and I snapped! If I could go back I would have done it at a different time. I don’t know when it’s ever really appropriate, but that was not the best time.”
The ‘Good Place’ star “wrestled with the shame” of her sexuality for “a long time” as she says being queer isn’t “accepted” within her South Asian background.
And Jameela kept the news quiet because she wanted to keep part of her private life to herself, but admitted it does feel “nice” to have it off her chest.
She told Variety Live: “I come from a South Asian background, so you just don’t really have a lot of queer idols. There isn’t a lot of conversation around it. There isn’t a lot of acceptance for it within my culture, traditionally. It was just something that I wrestled with the shame of for a long time.
“I have never felt like my private life is mine alone, so I’ve been trying to grapple with how to handle that for so long because I don’t like having my love life scrutinised. So I kept it quiet for a while to give myself some privacy and then it just burst out of me.
“Not my favourite moment of the year. We live and we learn … it’s nice to have it off my chest.”
Jameela spoke about her sexuality in a lengthy social media post last month, where she said it was “scary” to open up to the world before she was ready.
She wrote: "This is why I never officially came out as queer. I added a rainbow to my name when I felt ready a few years ago, as it's not easy within the south Asian community to be accepted, and I always answered honestly if ever straight-up asked about it on Twitter.
"But I kept it low because I was scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping, over something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear and turmoil when I was a kid.
"I didn't come from a family with *anyone* openly out. It's also scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you're already a brown female in your thirties. This is absolutely not how I wanted it to come out.
"I'm jumping off this hell app for a while because I don't want to read mean comments dismissing this. You can keep your thoughts. (sic)”
