Actress Maria Bello on Love & Life: “Labels Are Outdated”

Maria Bello. Photography Amanda Demme

In November of 2013, Maria Bello touched many with her New York Times Modern Love essay, “Coming Out as a Modern Family.” Her story revealed that she had been in a long term relationship with her best friend Clare Munn and that she remains close with her ex/son Jackson’s biological father. The piece was ultimately inspired by Bello’s child questioning her about her unconventional love life. Having processed this chain of events, Bello’s then 12-year-old son innocently looked at her and stated, “Whatever mom. Love is love.” His words catalyzed a broader discussion. Readers flooded her social media pages with tales of their own less than conventional partnerships. Soon Bello began to question all the labels that she had given herself and those that others had bestowed upon her. And several months later, while fighting off a parasite that she picked up during a volunteer trip in Haiti, Bello further explored the conversation. The resulting tome, Whatever…Love is Love, came out this week.

Yahoo Style caught up with the actress-turned-author to discuss working up the courage to explain her romantic partnership to her son, the labels that she refuses to accept for herself, and how a Cinderella moment propelled her career.

Yahoo Style: Whatever….Love is Love is finally out! Are you excited/nervous for people to get their hands on it?

Maria Bello: I’m really exited. Everyone who has read it has been so exited about having this conversation. When I got 273,000 Facebook hits in the first hour after the New York Times article came out, I realized then, “Wow! People want to talk about this! They are having the same questions about labels, about partnerships and family and the validity of love that I’m having and this is a larger conversation that needs to be had.”

YS: The book project started with an essay that you wrote for the New York Times Modern Love column called “Coming Out as a Modern Family.” Is it true that the essay was inspired by your son?

MB: That’s right. When I told my son that I was in a romantic relationship with a woman who was like a godmother to him, who was my best friend, I didn’t know what he would say. The words that he said would change my life. He said, “Whatever mom. Love is love.” And from there, I started ruminating on the idea of partnerships — romantic and otherwise — and what that means.

YS: In the essay, you share your story about your own unconventional “modern family” – which includes your partner Clare Munn, your son Jackson, and his father. Were you nervous to put that out to the masses?

MB: No. I wasn’t. I had been really sick with a parasite. I looked up and saw the people standing by my bedside when I was sick and they were all my partners in some way – whether I slept in the same bed with them, did homework with them, or had a child with them. It was my son’s father and my mother and my brother and Clare and my son. And I felt so much incredible love for these partners in my life. I wrote the article in one hour after Dan’s (Jackson’s father’s) 50th birthday party where my mother and father were here for it. Clare and I had thrown Dan a party and I wanted to shout it out to the world that, “Wow. This is a family and I’m so proud to be a part of this family.” At the time I had no idea how many modern families and unconventional partnerships were out there. And I didn’t realize how many people didn’t have labels to describe themselves or the structures of their lives.

YS: When were ready to tell your son?

MB: Well I love what this child psychologist said. I said, “What do you I do? When should I tell him? How?” and she said, “Wait till he asks.” So I waited till he asked and she said, “Your son may say a lot of things about you when he gets older, but he’ll never say his mother was boring.” And that made me laugh. My mom always said, “You just gotta laugh,” and I just tried to have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

YS: Despite your initial concern, it sounds like Jackson was very nonjudgmental and 100% on board with your relationship with Clare. Was that refreshing for you to see how these future generations are starting to be way more open and embrace things that are different than the traditional way of life?

MB: I’m so privileged to be around to see this young generation. My son wanted to take ping pong as an elective at school and I said, “No. You have to take a more serious class.” So his dean made him take gender studies. He was so mad. After the first class, he came home and said, “What’s the point of gender studies mom? Everybody knows boys and girls are equal.” And I liked that he doesn’t even consider that that’s an option that they wouldn’t be. He doesn’t even consider gay, lesbian, bi, trans…and not only him but all of his friends. They are not interested in who people are having sex with.

YS: Hopefully that will just continue and this won’t even have to be a huge discussion down the line and everyone will just accept everyone.

MB: Well that’s what Whatever is about. That’s the statement that opened the door to me of the larger conversation about how so many of the labels that we use today are outdated. We just don’t fit into tidy little boxes anymore.

YS: And aside from labels within your own family, you venture into different topics with the book like your tremulous relationship with your father, being diagnosed as bipolar…How did that whole package come about?

MB: I was very fortunate in that people who read my essay/publishers wanted to follow the larger conversation and wanted to continue it. And I did as well. I knew there was more to be said about the topic. While I was sick, I took the 100 journals from under my bed and started reading them – from the notebooks I had written with the green cover with little hearts drawn on them from when I was 13, up until now. And I thought it was going to be just a blast from the past, a walk down memory lane, but instead I started uncovering these pieces of myself and these labels that I had given myself. I started asking myself questions. “Who was this girl at 13 who drew these hearts? Who was this woman who had a child and felt like a bad mom some of the time? Who was this woman who still in her 40’s had the Prince Charming syndrome?” And it was through asking myself questions that I realized there were even bigger questions to be had by many people who were asking questions to themselves. So really, my essays are a springboard for people to ask their own questions about their labels.

YS: There’s a really great chapter in the book about you finding your own version of Cinderella’s glass slipper…

MB: I’ve always been one to look for signs. I was going to an audition when I was 22-years-old when I just started acting and I was told never to come back, that I was a horrible actress and my agent fired me. I started crying and running down 23rd treet in my army boots and I saw something glitzing in the show and I looked and it was a glittery golden shoe. So right there, in the middle of 23rd Street, I took off my boots, put on the shoe, and it fit. And that to me was a sign from God that I was on the right path and I was supposed to keep walking.

YS: And you probably can’t wear gold shoes now without thinking about your Cinderella shoe…

MB: It’s true. And my friend John, for my birthday, he was going to get me a pair of gold shoes. But then we thought, “Well maybe you want to change it up for the second part of your life.” So he got me a pair of very black classic three inch Manolo Blahnik pumps. So maybe that’s going to be my new thing. Now I’ll be on the search for Manolo as opposed to gold shoes.

Whatever…Love Is Love: Questioning The Labels We Give Ourselves is out now.

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