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Andrew Gillum hotel

Source: Photo courtesy of Tamron Hall / Disney–ABC Domestic Television

Sitting down with Tamron Hall to speak for the first time on the fallout from his Miami Beach hotel room scandal in March, Andrew Gillum revealed that he is bisexual.

Andrew and wife R. Jai sat down with Hall for the Season 2 premiere of the Tamron Hall Show, which aired Monday. In an effort to address the assumptions made about him after being found in a hotel room with two men, one overdosed and with a background as an escort (who claimed he and Andrew were friends), the politician opened up about his sexuality.

“To be very honest with you, and you didn’t ask the question, you put it out there, is whether or not I identify as gay. And the answer is, I don’t identify as gay. But I do identify as bisexual and that is something that I have never shared publicly before,” he said.

And in a clip that wasn’t shown on the episode, Andrew, who maintains that nothing happened while in the hotel (though his intentions weren’t clear), broke down how people falsely assume that by identifying as bisexual you’re more prone to cheat.

“Bisexuality in an of itself does not lead to unfaithfulness. There are men who are in marriages with women who just because they’re married to a woman, doesn’t mean they’re no longer attracted to other women. At any point and time [they] can slip up, make a mistake, do something, and that is what it is. The same thing in bisexual relationships,” he said. “You can be attracted to both. You got a bigger terrain out there that you have to contend with but you can still choose to physically be with one person. That’s a choice that all of us in our marriages and committed relationships have to deal with.”

Andrew said keeping his sexuality private for so long was like suffocating a part of himself. But one person who knew what was going on was his wife. R. Jai was aware of his bisexuality and she shared that his situation is a reason many don’t speak on identifying as such. People just don’t get it and just assume the person is gay.

“He didn’t have to say it. I don’t think it’s anyone’s business,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fair to people who are not heterosexual or assumed heterosexual that they should ever have to say or disclose what they are because of how judgmental people are. I also know and I think he mentioned it to you that so many people just don’t understand bisexuality. They think they can wrap their heads around gay, but bisexuality is just something different.”

“I just believe that love and sexuality sits on a spectrum,” she added. “All I care about is what’s between us.”

As far as explaining what led him to that hotel room that night, Andrew said this:

“I would say the reason why I went to that room is probably no different than how anybody might communicate with someone that they are in a friendship, relationship, whatever, with,” he said. “I understand very well what people assume about that.”

He believed that there was a possibility that something had been put in his drink prior to going to the hotel room, though he claimed he was drinking solo. Whatever may have happened, it was enough to get him to the point where he was heavily inebriated and naked on the ground in the hotel. A photo of him in that state made it around the Internet.

“When that photo came out, I didn’t recognize the person on the floor,” he said. “That was not not anything more than a person being at their most vulnerable state unconscious having given no consent and someone decided to use a moment where I was literally lying in my own vomit.”

R. Jai stated that the fact that those photos came out was disappointing, especially when you consider that it would have been a completely different scenario had Andrew been a woman.

“This whole situation, if it had happened to a woman, would be a very different narrative,” she said. “Would the pictures have even made it out? It would have been criminal.”

She did say that she believed Andrew’s behavior to be reckless on that night, but they were working through things. And while he admitted after the incident that he had a drinking problem, which he went to rehab for, the rumors that he was on drugs, he said were false. A drug test he took when he arrived at his rehabilitation facility “came back completely clean.”

So now that he is done with rehab and telling his story, presumably with the hope that he can get back into politics, where do the couple stand? They revealed to Hall that they are in therapy and are working to rebuild the trust and confidence in their marriage, with the support of loved ones.

“Those people who love us and care about us and wish us well — no matter what did happen — that is the energy we need and receive,” she said.

They married in 2009 and have three children together.

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