Raven-Symoné’s return to her character Raven Baxter on the Disney Channel spin-off Raven’s Home (premiered in 2017), came several years after she publicly announced her affiliation to the LGBTQ+ community. She was asked if she wanted to change her character to be a lesbian, but she rejected the idea.
“I was asked a question, ‘Would you like Raven Baxter to be a lesbian?’ And I said no,” she said on the latest episode of the Pride podcast.
“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,” she said. “It was because Raven Baxter is Raven Baxter, and there was no reason for me to change the human that she was in order to fit the actress that played her.” – Raven-Symoné
The actress, who has been married to Miranda Pearman-Maday since 2020, told Pride host Levi Chambers that there was a reason why she declined the change.
“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,” she said. “It was because Raven Baxter is Raven Baxter, and there was no reason for me to change the human that she was in order to fit the actress that played her.”
Raven-Symoné said she wants to remain authentic to her character being straight in the original series, That’s So Raven.
“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 said. “She was divorced though [on the spin-off], and I had no worries about saying, ‘No boyfriends.'”
