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Ariana DeBose made history this year, when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the first Afro-Latina and the first openly queer person to do so.
In an appearance on the People Every Day podcast, she discussed her opinion on labels and what matters most to her.
While her sexuality and race are important to her, DeBose explained that the world has grown and that people are now more ready to embrace each other no matter their labels. “I prefer the term human because your humanity can be described in a myriad of ways, but it does not change the fact that you are human,” she said. “The fullness of who you are, what it’s like to be queer, out, Latina, Afro-Latina, biracial, or multiracial, however you want to identify... we are moving towards a space where I think it is now more widely accepted to hear all of those labels wrapped up into one person.”
When DeBose was awarded the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, she delivered one of the most emotional speeches of the evening, nailing down the progress that’s been made over the years and how the art we make nowadays is more reflective of the world. “Imagine this little girl in the backseat of a white Ford Focus,” she said at the ceremony. “Look into her eyes, you see a queer — openly queer — woman of color, Afro-Latina who found her strength in life through art, and that’s what I believe we are here to celebrate.”
Ariana DeBose will be hosting this year’s Tony Awards and was recently named as one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of 2022. Her tribute was written by her co-star Kristin Chenoweth, who called her a quadruple threat. “She’s not only a dancer, an actress, and a singer, but also kind,” Chenoweth wrote. “Ariana’s as authentic as they come, and whatever she does next, I will be cheering from fifth-row center.”