Lily Cole comes out as queer: ‘I feel the need to acknowledge that I am not straight’

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British supermodel Lily Cole has revealed that she identifies as “queer” adding that she sees other labels of sexuality as too “rigid”.

In a new interview with the Sunday Times Style to discuss her debut book, Who Cares Wins, the mother of one, 33, said the choice of the word queer allows her to be open while protecting her private life.

“I like that word [queer] because of its openness, because I think all those boundaries are quite rigid. I have lots of friends who identify as bisexual, lesbian or whatever, who also identify as queer.

“I’ve always been quite private about my private life, consciously, and I want to continue to be, so I don’t feel the need to be explicit. At the same time I feel the need to acknowledge that I am not straight,” she said.

It is not the first time the model has spoken about her sexuality. She briefly touched on being queer in Who Cares Wins, when discussing the privilege of being born in the UK.

“If I were living in another country today, my queerness would be a crime,” she said.

“Had my mixed-race daughter been born in a different country, she would have been a crime,” she said. Cole and her partner, Kwame Ferreira, welcomed their five-year-old daughter, Wylde Cole Ferreira in 2015.

In the interview, Cole, who was first scouted at the age of 14 and appeared on the cover of British Vogue two years later, also discussed the duality of the modelling world. She said the industry both empowers women while imposing impossible beauty standards.

“I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I feel that fashion is one of the only industries where women are more empowered than men — female models are paid more than male models, the consumers are predominantly female, it is a very female-centric industry. And so, in a strange way, I felt very empowered.

“That being said, yes, there were photographers who were inappropriate. I didn’t really understand that or recognise that at the time, and I can recognise that now,” she said, recalling a time when a casting director commented on her having “puppy fat”.

“My mum was mortified. How can a grown man say that to a 14-year-old girl? It is so irresponsible. But I think that has been changing, and now we have much more diversity,” she added.