"Orange Is The New Black" Writer Lauren Morelli Comes Out In Touching Essay

"I went through it all on set: I fell in love with a woman, and I watched my life play out on screen."

Lauren Morelli, a writer on Orange in the New Black, came out today in a touching personal essay.

Lauren Morelli @lomorelli

This is probably the most personal thing I will ever write, so the internet seemed like a good place for it. http://t.co/ASA31AWgVp

03:22 PM - 21 May 2014

"While writing for Orange Is the New Black, I realized I am gay," reads the headline. What follows is the incredibly personal journey that began with Morelli's first day on set.

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Morelli started writing for Season 1 only five months after her own wedding.

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"Five months after my wedding, I flew to New York to start production on my first episode of Orange, and from that moment on my life fell into a parallel rhythm with Piper's story in a way that went from interesting to terrifying in a matter of months."

She started to realize she was unsure about her own sexuality as the writers developed Piper's sexuality on the show.

Twitter: @lomorelli

"I went to therapy that night and casually mentioned that perhaps I was higher on the Kinsey Scale than I previously thought."

The pivotal "phone scene" between Larry and Piper was a scene she had written with words "shamelessly borrowed" from her own life.

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"... and as I watched Jason Biggs repeat "I don't know if you can," after Piper begs him to let her fix her mistakes, the world around me swirled in a dizzying blur of life imitating art. Or vice versa — it's hard to say sometimes. By the end of the day I mostly was trying not to cry, and I also couldn't feel my feet."

Morelli not only had to mourn the loss of her own marriage, but the identity she had known all her life.

"After lugging around a basket full of shame and guilt for the last year, there was a lightness that came with realizing that I could choose to replace my negative framing with honesty and grace."

Morelli also wrote Piper and Alex's “I heart you” scene in Season 1.

Netflix

"Accordingly, I was nervous about the first love scene I'd written for Alex and Piper. I'd loved writing it, loved watching a tenderness emerge in their relationship where passion always seemed to be the ruling principle, but by that time, I was so deep in my own self-doubt that I constantly felt like a fraud.

Morelli, we heart you too. Read the full essay here.

Instagram: @lomorelli

Instagram: @lomorelli