What is she? Well, she is a model, actor, singer/songwriter. She is provocative, original, and a fascinating curiosity. She’s Janelle Monáe! And she come out as queer in Rolling Stone last year:
Let the rumors be true. Being a queer black woman in America, someone who has been in relationships with both men and women – I consider myself to be free.
She also set the Internet on fire when she got real close with Academy Award-winner Lupita Nyong’o at the Met Gala earlier this month.
Nyong’o won that Oscar for her performance in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave (2012). She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and has starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), Black Panther (2018) and Us the current horror thriller film written and directed by Jordan Peele; all of them huge hits. She was also named People Magazine’s Most Beautiful Person in 2014.
Monáe’s breakout was on Fun‘s Number One single We Are Young in 2001 Her album, Dirty Computer, was released last year to universal critical acclaim and brought Monáe her eighth Grammy Award nomination. She has also proved her acting chops with roles in films such as Moonlight (2016), Hidden Figures (2016)and Welcome To Marwen (2018).
Up Next: Harriet based on the life of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, and the voice of Peg in the unnecessary live action remake of Disney’s Lady And The Tramp (1955). I am excited about The Glorias: A Life On The Road is an upcoming biopic directed by Julie Taymor, with Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore as young and older Gloria Steinem, Bette Midler as Bella Abzug and Monáe as Dorothy Pitman Hughes.
Monáe has been romantically linked to Tessa Thompson (Thor). Nyong’o has dated Jared Leto, Michael Fassbender, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Rumors swirled about Nyong’o and Monáe when Instagram pictures were posted of the pair grinding, cuddling, and caressing each other’s faces at a Met Gala after-party.
Monáe has made cryptic comments about artificial intelligence and once announced that she would only date androids, before finally admitting that her fixation with all things robot has to do with celebrating what she calls “the Other”, marginalized peoples and groups, especially the LGBTQ community.
We love an artist who channels Annie Lennox, Janet Jackson, Prince, Erykah Badu, James Brown, Grace Jones, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix, and uses her talent and light of her to illuminate the essence of being different. And, we love a Mexican-African actor who is as beautiful as she is talented.
