Actress Busy Philipps has revealed that her 12-year-old kid, Birdie Leigh, is “gay and out.”
“Birdie told us at 10 years old and we immediately … I mean obviously, I knew that Birdie knew,” the 41-year-old said on Thursday’s episode of her podcast, “Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best.”
Philipps added that Birdie has also talked about their choice of pronouns — and even though that is something mom still has to work on, she has been “trying my best at that.”
“I said, ‘You know, Bird, I’ve been doing a bad job with the pronouns,'” she said.
“Because Birdie said that they would like their pronouns to be they/them, and I haven’t been doing it, and I said because I have this public persona and I want Birdie to be in control of their own narrative and not have to answer to anybody outside of our friends and family if they don’t want to,” she added.
Thankfully for Philipps, Birdie said that they had absolutely no problem with their mother publicly discussing the subject.
“Bird was like, ‘I don’t give a f–k. You can talk about how I’m gay and out; you can talk about my pronouns. That would be cool with me. That’s great.’ So I said, ‘OK, I can talk about it on the podcast.’ “
The “Dawson’s Creek” star also shared an inspiring moment of bonding between mom and her 12-year-old.
Recently, after finding Birdie “lying on the floor in the dark” listening to Harry Styles’ “Fine Line” album, Birdie told Philipps that, “I feel like I’m alive, but I’m not really living, you know? And I just want the living part to start.”
Philipps said she got “really emotional,” and used the opportunity as a teaching moment.
“‘You get to choose what will make you feel fulfilled and happy. It doesn’t have to be any of these constructs that we’ve all been fed our whole lives. This is a different world that you get to f–ing build,” she said.
The “Cougar Town” star shares Birdie and their younger sibling, 7-year-old Cricket Pearl, with her husband, screenwriter and director Marc Silverstein.
