The actress chatted with Variety‘s Angelique Jackson to discuss her sexuality — something she says she hasn’t done in the past because “nobody asked.”

On March 24, the 53-year-old donned a red Dolce & Gabbana suit jacket with the word “Queer” bedazzled on one of the arms while attending the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards, Variety reports. She strutted down the red carpet in her outfit, but she said no one from the media asked her about her clothing choice.

“I was thinking, ‘Why didn’t more people pay attention to that?’ And I was like, they probably thought it said ‘Queen,'” she told Variety. “It wasn’t that I was expecting any sort of major reaction or anything like that. One of my family members noticed, but nobody else did.”

Ellis shared that her family had a hard time accepting her decision to express her sexuality, adding that they were “hurt.”

Growing up in a God-fearing family, Ellis said she understands their hesitancy and lack of understanding.

“I am a work in progress, and my family and my community are works in progress,” Ellis said. “I really believe that that is important to say because I’m not alone. We see people on the other side of it, where everybody’s good and fine: ‘Love is love.'”

Outside of her home in the Bible Belt, however, Ellis said her family feels differently.

“If they come to New York and they are around all my gay friends, they’re like, ‘Oh we’re cool.’ But don’t bring it to the house. Don’t be open with it,” she said.

Ellis started realizing she was queer when she was 8 as she started to question misogyny in the Bible, Variety reports. She recounts that “there was this other thing about me that I also didn’t understand.” She recalled a summer during her teen years when she actively tried to teach herself how to be attracted to boys and “to talk my body into correct behavior.”

It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that Ellis, who is now in an 11-year relationship with a man, acknowledged that she was bisexual.

Now, her sexuality is something she’s well acquainted with.

“The way that I live my life, around the people that I live my life around, I am public about it,” she said. “I’m very clear about being bisexual. I have a sweatshirt that says ‘Girl Bi’ that I wear everywhere.”

But talking about her sexuality isn’t always so natural. She said that she’s not the kind of “chick” to discuss the subject matter openly, especially if she’s on the job.

“How do you work that into the conversation, in the middle of me talking about this movie?” she said. “I’m not that chick. My job was to talk about King Richard, the Williams family, these wonderful young women I worked with, Will Smith’s incredible work in that movie. I wasn’t going to be like, ‘And by the way, in case you ain’t heard yet …’ Because that’s artificial,” she continued, referring to the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards.

Regardless of what others ask or assume, Ellis said she knows who she is.

“There is an assumption made of me — a presumption made of me. Is it because I’m a Black woman from Mississippi? Is it because I’m older?” she asked. “I don’t know what the mechanics are that goes into them not processing, or them not just being able to believe that in the same way I am Black, I am queer. This is who I am.”