Laverne Cox is explaining why she walked away from a relationship with a MAGA-supporting New York City police officer, saying the romance ultimately made her feel as though she were abandoning herself.
The actress and activist appeared on The View on Monday, where she revisited the relationship while discussing her new memoir, Transcendent. Cox, 54, had previously shared that she once dated a “blonde-haired, blue-eyed, MAGA Republican voter.”
The actress was discussing the relationship with co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin.
“People show you who they are eventually,” Cox said.
Cox said the unnamed man “treated me better” than anyone she had dated before him. She also said she later discovered he had initially lied about his work as a police officer. “We didn’t plan to fall in love, but we did,” Cox said. By the time his “political affiliation became obvious,” she told Griffin, adding that she already had feelings for him and “wanted to see him as a human being, beyond that.”
“I love him, but I love myself more, and staying in this relationship, I betrayed myself,” she continued. “Not just my political values, because, in theory, I’d like to believe we can have relationships across political differences. But there was a value difference.”
Cox first spoke publicly about the romance while promoting a live performance last summer, then responded again after backlash continued online. In a later statement, she said, “Fascism is not consistent with my values. I am an anti-fascist. I never adopted any of my ex’s politics.”
She added, “The good things about the relationship were so good that I was willing to work with the politics that I didn’t agree with.”