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Raven-Symoné spilled some interesting tea about her show “Raven’s Home” during a recent appearance on the Pride podcast.
Fans of the Disney Channel series have often questioned the relationship between Raven’s character Baxter and her best friend Chelsea Daniels–pondering if the two were actually more than friends. Symoné revealed that Disney even approached her at one point about making the two besties a lesbian couple, but she swiftly declined.
“You know what, there was a conversation before the series started and I was asked the question, ‘Would you like Raven Baxter to be a lesbian?’ And I said, no. I said no,” Raven, 35, explained. “And the reason I said no wasn’t because I wasn’t proud of who I was, or I didn’t want to represent the LGBTQ+ community in any way. It was because Raven Baxter is Raven Baxter is Raven Baxter.”
The 35-year-old star continued:
“There was no reason for me to change the human that she was in order to fit the actress that played her. And Raven Baxter is a character that I was proud to play, even if she is straight, cisgender, I don’t mind. Let her have her moment. She was divorced though, and I had no worries about saying, ‘No boyfriends.’”
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Raven’s Home, which made its debut in 2017, is a spin-off series to 2003’s That’s So Raven. Raven-Symoné garnered praise for her role as teenage psychic Raven Baxter, who uses her supernatural abilities to get in and out of the amusing adolescent and pre-adolescent situations she experiences. Now all grown up, Raven’s Home follows Baxter’s character in her adult years as she and her friend Chelsea, played by Anneliese van der Pol, raise their children as single mothers in the same Chicago home. Raven’s Son (Issac Ryan Brown) also inherits her psychic abilities.
On the podcast, Raven joked about how the “quiet undertones” of the show mirrored aspects of her own personal love life. In June of last year, the Disney actress jumped the broom with her wife Miranda Pearman-Maday, celebrating their big day with a private ceremony. Raven gushed to PEOPLE about marrying the woman of her dreams.
“Miranda makes me feel confident and empowered in an entirely new way. We planned our ceremony together and it was a true reflection of our love and partnership,” she shared.
Raven came out to fans in 2016, but the decision was long and difficult for the star who said she struggled with coming to terms with her sexuality because of her success at such a young age.
“I knew I couldn’t say it out loud because, ‘Oh my god, little Olivia is gay, this is crazy,’” the Cosby Show alum told L Studio in an interview.
“It was always negative,” she continued. “So, if you don’t see other people going through it in a positive way, why would you say anything? There was nothing that would have made me want to deal with my own issue at that time.”
The Disney star said she “felt lighter” when she finally decided to come out to the world.
“I felt like I could go out and not have to put on 17 different hats to be myself,” she added. “I realize that just living my truth of what I am, there’s one less person to fight me in my own head.”
Congrats to Raven-Symoné!
