Legendary ladies’ man Billy Dee Williams admits he didn’t know what the term “gender fluid” meant.
The 82-year-old actor caused a stir last week when he said he sees himself as “feminine as well as masculine,” but he has insisted his comments were misunderstood and he doesn’t view himself as not having a fixed gender.
“Well, first of all, I asked last night. I said, ‘What the hell is gender fluid?’ That’s a whole new term,” Williams told The Undefeated.
“But what I was talking about was about men getting in touch with the softer side of themselves.
“There’s a phrase that was coined by Carl G. Jung, who was a psychiatrist and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and they had a splitting of the ways because they had different ideas about … consciousness [and] unconscious. It’s a collective consciousness.
“But he coined a phrase that’s ‘anima animus.’ And anima means … the female counterpart of the male self and the animus is the male counterpart of the female.
“So that’s what I was referring to. I was talking about men getting in touch with the female side of themselves.”
And the Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker actor insisted his remarks had nothing to do with sexuality.
“I wasn’t talking about sex, I wasn’t talking about gay or straight. I’m not gay — by any stretch of the imagination. Not that I have anything against gay people. But personally? Not gay,” he added.
Williams used both pronouns when discussing how he wasn’t afraid to show both his masculine and feminine sides.
“Be yourself. I never tried to be anything except myself. I think of myself as a relatively colorful character who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously,” he told Esquire magazine.
“And you see I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine. I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.”
