Niecy Nash-Betts Is Thriving by Living Life “Out Loud”: “I Choose Myself Everyday”

Niecy Nash-Betts will take the GLAAD Media Awards stage in Los Angeles on March 14, bringing the Emmy Award-winning actress back into the organization’s fold after she hosted the show in 2021. At the time, the veteran star of such shows as Reno 911! and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was fresh from revealing to the world that she’d married musician Jessica Betts, and since then, Nash-Betts has, in her words, lived her life out, proud and with absolutely no shame. The couple was featured on the cover of Essence — a first in the magazine’s 50-year history — and played lovers on broadcast television courtesy of Nash-Betts’ series The Rookie: Feds. Now, the actress will receive the Stephen F. Kolzak Award for helping raise the visibility of LGBTQ people and issues. THR caught up with the 54-year-old over Zoom to discuss falling in love, winning an Emmy and sharing the stage with fellow GLAAD honoree (and friend) Oprah Winfrey.

When GLAAD offered you this award, how did that feel and why did you say yes?

I was like, “Who, me?” I don’t live my life in a way that says: If I do this, people will acknowledge me or I will receive accolades. I just live. I choose myself every day. I trust my gift and, in those spaces, and places, the accolades, the honor, the awards come. Every time my head is about to pop off, I’m like, “Somebody wants to honor me? For what? Being myself and living my life out loud?” I’ll take it every time. 

When you think about how much your life has changed over these past almost four years since you married Jessica, how do you qualify that?

I feel richer. And, if I’m being honest, literally and figuratively. I’m not going to tell you that I’ve never been loved before, but being loved the way that makes you feel completely satiated is a different thing. Being loved in a way where you are completely open and fully seen is a different thing, and it’s in those spaces and places that allows me to thrive in my business and in my professional life. Its is definitely a delicious double dip.

You’ve said before that Jessica’s love feels “custom,” and that your marriage has absolutely nothing to do with gender. Tell me about that.

No one can tell you who or what you are, it’s a very individual thing. I just don’t lean into labels, maybe in a way that traditional norms say you should. I’m Black, I’m a mother and I’m a lover. Those are my labels. The rest of it is yet unfolding. The thing that we are created for is the thing we struggle with the most, and that’s love. Letting others tell us what that should be, how that should be or when that should be is a very individual thing. If you would’ve asked me five years ago if I would’ve saw myself married to a woman, I would’ve said, “Who? Not me. I’m strictly dickly in these streets.” That’s real talk.

Then I met the most beautiful soul I have ever met in my life, and I said, “Now, wait a minute.” Things done change. Gender is the least of these. I don’t care about that. I don’t care about the outer wrapping. It doesn’t matter to me. It is the heart and the soul of an individual that I feel completely drawn to in a way that I have never felt about anyone. I didn’t live a sexually repressed life.

When that shift came, you could’ve chosen to step back and nurture that love in private but instead you embraced it out in the open. How has it been navigating these new spaces?

Here’s the thing: I will tell you I’m a lot of things, but the one thing I have never been is shame. Anything I do, I do it out loud. Anything I do, I do it for myself first. If the masses catch it, good for you. There wasn’t a space within me that would’ve said, “Love and stay small love. Love and stay private. Love and keep it to yourself and your close friends.” I said, “Let’s go.” Loving Jessica out loud has been as natural as breathing. I would never tell someone, “I’m in love with you, but I can’t tell anyone about you. I’m in love with you, but I want to keep it private.” That’s foolishness to me. We did break the internet with our marriage. We were the first same sex couple to cover Essence in 52 years of the magazine. We hosted GLAAD Awards together. We were on a broadcast television network as lovers. We’ve done many things and had many firsts and as far as I’m concerned as it should be.

Do you remember the first LGBTQ person you saw in pop culture?

I think it was on an episode of Maude, which was like a thousand years ago, and I remember hearing my parents talk about it. Everybody was kind of clutching their pearls. It’s interesting to think about it now because there’s a moniker in the Black community, being called “auntie.” As an auntie who had always been in opposite-sex relationships, people already had an affinity toward me. Then to fall in love with a same-sex partner — I distinctly remember about 3,000 people unfollowing me and about 30,000 started following me. That says to me that people felt seen. We have so many problems in the world, love shouldn’t be one of ’em. 

Where do you stand on the debate in Hollywood of who should be allowed to play what roles?

To be honest with you, I’m an artist first. Where I lay my head has nothing to do with my art. I have friends who are gay/queer men who play heterosexual men. Do you say, “Oh no, you should only get straight men to play straight men”? No. But somehow when it comes to the reverse, it becomes a conversation, like, “Only queer people should play queer people.” Art is art and let the art go forth and speak for itself and let the art do what the art will do.

You called yourself an artist and I’ll add to that, a decorated, award-winning artist. Where do you keep your trophies?

I have a media room and the majority of my trophies are in there. I’m speaking to you from what I call my “closet,” and I see two awards sitting right across from me. I have my last Emmy right at the front door, and some in the family room. I have awards everywhere in this house except the kitchen.

You could put your GLAAD award in the kitchen. How has your life changed since you won the Emmy?

For me, that night solidified for my peers that I’m not just a one-trick pony. I can make you laugh, I can make you cry, and I got the hardware to prove it. 

At the awards, you’ll share a stage with fellow honoree Oprah Winfrey — what does she mean to you?

As far as I’m concerned, there’s God, then Oprah, and then the Obamas. We’ve fellowshipped many times, but my favorite time has to be going to her property in Maui. We went on a two-hour hike together. It was just the two of us, and it changed my life forever. I remember having the opportunity recently to tell her how much that time together charted a different course for my life and put me in a space and a place that I will forever be grateful for. 

You set the internet on fire on Feb. 23, when the Grotesquerie teaser dropped on social media, marking a reunion with Ryan Murphy. What can you say about this new horror entry?

What I can say is that I’ve never played this character before. I can say that Ryan Murphy is a genius. I can say that Ryan Murphy will forever have me at hello. This series is going to be so delicious to fans of Ryan and fans of mine. I would coin it as a satiating darkness that you have to bear witness to. 

This story first appeared in the March 14 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.