Becca Murray Is Your Cool Aunt Dad

Have you ever come across a person on an app that immediately comes across as someone you would want to be friends with? Such is the case with photographer Becca Murray, a TikTok sensation whose anecdotes and musings on everything from playsuits to granddad walks has captured the minds and hearts of users on what can sometimes be a capricious app.

Recently I got to sit down with Murray and discuss a whole world of subjects, covering everything from hobbits and waterbeds to body neutrality and wage transparency for online creators. Read more below, but I must warn you: you’ll want to go follow @thebeccamurray on “the clock app” and hear her thoughts on everything under the sun, too.

JENNIE ROBERSON: How did you come to identify as bi or queer?

BECCA MURRAY: So I feel like everyone — it’s a long story of growing up in the Nineties, right? The bi erasure was real.

I actually had a lot of friends in high school who were out. But all of [them] were much more… I'll say, like, alternative than I was. I was always sort of the vanilla-looking person who was hanging out with theatre kids and at the coffee shop and everything.

Yeah. We all had our bi Goth friends.

BM: Exactly. And so I was always around it, but it always felt like it wasn't a label that I was allowed to call myself for some reason. There was always like a running joke, literally my entire life, that there was an alternate universe where I was dating women and was in relationships [with] women. And I always said that, especially after I met my current partner, who I've been with for almost 10 years, I always just assumed that I would date a woman at some point and never got around to it before I met my person. And because I had never dated anyone, like in a romantic sense in a relationship, I felt like I couldn't use the label.

And so it took joining TikTok and getting dropped squarely in queer TikTok almost immediately, and being privy to a bunch of conversations in that space about how your actions and your sexual history don't necessarily have anything to do with your identity, and then sitting in quarantine as many people were just with my own thoughts for a long time. And then just going, “Why have I never embraced this label for myself before when it's obviously who I am?” But it's just not a label that I'd ever put on myself before.

I had had a couple of different conversations with friends, one where someone was just like, “Oh yeah. Both of us obviously would've dated women at some point, but we met our guys first. So guess we're just straight!” And I was like, “That doesn’t feel right!”

And then I had somebody else in conversation be like, “Oh, yeah, Becca is like the token straight.” And I was like, “I don't want to be the token straight! Why am I the token straight?! I don't feel like that is an accurate description of me.” And so then I started sitting with why am I uncomfortable with the word “straight?” And then it sort of went from there.

I pulled my partner aside one day, sat him down, and was like, “Hi: Can we just have a conversation about something that absolutely doesn't change our relationship at all in any way, shape or form, but feels like something I need to say?” And he was like, “Yeah, duh; I only called you straight ‘cause you called yourself straight,” [That] was literally what he said.

Isn't that funny how some partners seem to know or are comfortable with it before you are?

BM: Yeah! He was like, "You always talked about dating women and being attracted to women and non-binary people. And I never took that as anything but a fact, even though you said you were straight; just, labels are whatever they are, so [I] just never really put too much stock in it.” Which I appreciated.

So what has your experience been like being out as a bi artist and photographer? Have you found acceptance within your communities?

BM: Yeah! I mean, I’ve always been really involved in the LGBTQ+ community since I was in high school. Even one of my first boyfriends was bi. So when I went off to college — he was my boyfriend when I went to college — I joined what I guess at other places would be the gay student union, called P.R.I.S.M. at our place: Pride-Reflecting Individuals of Sexual Minorities. And I was, again, their token straight girl [with] the air quotes and the eye-rolling. And I was like, “My boyfriend's bi; I can be here.”

I've always been involved with that stuff. I ran a half marathon with APLA a couple of years ago. I was at the AIDS Walk out here. It’s always just been part of my life. And [with] being a wedding photographer, I've always shot a lot of queer weddings, so that wasn't really much of an issue.

I guess it was sort of why coming out during COVID, during the lockdown, and because I'm in a long-term relationship, I don't feel like that many things changed, honestly. It's like when I got my nose ring, and a bunch of people were like, “You didn't already have a nose ring?”

It’s like we talk about how there’s an entire diaspora within the LGBT community, particularly within the bisexual community, but we ended up finding our own little tells, like septum piercings or cuffed jeans.

BM: Well, it's funny because I mentioned looking vanilla for a long time, but a lot of it was I was an actor and had a very specific type of role that I would go out for [that was] very similar to you. I was very Midwestern [looking]… I was younger, and I looked really young, so up until 28, I was still going out for like [roles with ages like] 18, 19, 20, 22. I was so often put in these young, innocent, cutesy boxes. Getting bangs was the wildest thing that my agent let me do. I couldn't dye my hair. I felt like I couldn't get a weird haircut. I couldn't do anything.

So I had wanted to pierce my nose forever. And I just never let myself do it, ‘cause I was like, “Oh, like going out for [auditions] — would I have to take it out?” Same thing with tattoos. There were so many things.

And so then I was 36, working at an office job [as] executive assistant to the CEO. I had always told myself, “In addition to my acting career, I'm in this position, and I have to look a certain way.” And then one day, I was just, like, “Why? WHY? Why.” There is nothing in the rule book that says I can't do what I wanna do. So I just went out after work one day and pierced my nose. And then I came back, and my boss literally the next day was like, “Oh, your nose hasn't always been pierced?” [Laughs]

I just feel like cracks started to show in my thirties, and I finally started letting things seep into them, opening the fault lines. Like, let things open up a little bit, starting to shift.

Is there anything about yourself you would like people to know that maybe isn't part of your public persona, or do you want to be an entire mystery?

I don't think I'm much of a mystery at all. I am very much an open book/oversharer.

The TikTok thing is funny. I've never had a public persona until this last year and a half of my life. I have never really had a social media presence… Even as an actor, you're stuck in a role. People don't know you. So this is all very new to me, and I feel like I have shared a lot of myself, and I'm comfortable with that — at least, the parts that I have shared.

I think I've taken great pains not to put myself in a box on TikTok. I get afraid sometimes because of the dimples, and the way that I look, and the way that I can come across that people will put me in a cutesy or quirky little box, and I am very much an Aries. I have a lot of fucking fire. I am... I don't wanna say bossy, but I am opinionated. And I'm turning 40 in two months. I am older than I look; I am comfortable with myself and the things that I think and stand my ground.

I think it took me a little bit just to be making sure that I was showing that part to people, partially because I don't wanna put myself in a box and partially because I think it's important for people to see that not only that I am a well-rounded human who has the full spectrum of human emotion and faults, but also that other people have permission to do that. You don't have to just be one thing. ‘Cause I feel like so many of the people on TikTok are younger than me, and there is so much going on in your twenties of trying to figure out who you are and what you want in this life. I know that I [had] continually put myself in little boxes for a really long time, and it took breaking out of all of those individually and then figuring out what parts of each of them I wanted to take with me.

How did you get interested in photography?

BM: I always had a camera in my hand. I went off to mad camp — music and drama camp — for, like, two weeks, and I would take my camera and come home with, like, 20 rolls of film and make my mom go to Costco — Price Club back then — and get doubles of all of them so I could send photos to my friends. When I was in high school, I was the historian for my drama club, and I put together an epic album at the end of the year of the entire year, and my favorite thing was taking candid photos of everyone backstage.

I just always had a camera in my hand out here. And then, when I was acting, I was starting to have some health issues that were making it difficult for me to maintain my energy on-set and in class and working a bunch of jobs. So I needed another creative outlet for myself. So I started leaning more heavily toward photography.

It started by taking pictures of actors, as you do out here [in L.A..] But I quickly discovered that I hated taking headshots. So I started doing lifestyle sheets for actors for websites and stuff like that. And then a friend asked if I could take some sexy photos of her for her husband for their anniversary. That was my first time doing [that], and I was like, “What is this? This is amazing. I just want to hype people up and make them feel good in their bodies.” And then that skyrocketed. So once I started doing the boudoir [shoots], it was like I found my niche and my people.

Weddings I just sort of fell into; it’s like, “A friend of a friend wants you to do a thing.” And then another friend of a friend, and then that sort of snowballed. And then I started getting a lot of the people who found me through boudoir that felt comfortable with me and wanted me to shoot their weddings when that time came around.

So now those are sort of my bread and butter.

You mentioned hyping people up. How do you strive to make your subjects comfortable enough to help you get the best shots?

BM: I'm a much quieter photographer than a lot of others. I think part of my skillset is being an introvert and a wallflower a little bit. “Empath” is a loaded term these days, but I am empathetic. And I think I have the ability to disappear into a room a little bit and let people be with themselves.

I always tell people at the beginning of a boudoir session that it's an hour or two for them to celebrate their body. It's their time to be with themselves and thank their own body for getting them to this place. How often do we actually give ourselves the space to sit down in our underwear in a pretty location and just be like, “Oh, I feel amazing. I look amazing. I wanna just be in my fucking skin right now and not have to think about anything else.”

And so, I think just giving people that space is something that I am able to do.

Why did you start a TikTok? What about the app appealed to you?

BM: I downloaded TikTok for dances. It was the beginning of lockdown, and I saw some people posting TikTok dances on Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, and I was like, “Oh, that seems like a fun way to do something in my house that will keep me busy and like [add] some movement or whatever within my four walls.” I wasn't moving at all, and I didn't have any work, and I had literally nothing going on.

I was just lurking for a little while, and then I decided to just make a video. And then I was like, “Oh, this is actually fun.” I hadn't been in front of the camera in a really long time. And so it scratched that itch a little bit, and I remembered how much I liked it and how I feel like I translate well on camera.

I feel like I can connect with people. I think it's something about being an introvert, honestly. ‘Cause, it’s weird to be alone in a room by yourself, talking to your phone. Right? Yeah. But I’m much more comfortable talking to my phone than if I had thousands of people in front of me. That would take a lot of deep breaths and meditation to be able to walk out and say the things that I say.

I think I was lucky in terms of when I joined and the way that things were sort of working in the number of people that were using the platform at the time. I had a video that hit and that went from zero to 60 right away; I got to 10,000 followers really quickly. And I had never had a social media presence or any sort of following. So I was like, “Oh, crap, what is this?"

So then I just started posting every day, ‘cause I was like, “I don't have a job right now, so let me treat this like it's my job (even though it's not) because it gives me something to get up for every day.” …And then I just started getting to know my followers.

So you have your bio describing yourself as “your cool aunt dad.” What does that mean to you? What type of intersections of identities does your typical follower live at?

BM: So since the beginning, I had “your cool aunt” on there because I joined up knowing I'm older than everyone. Right off the bat, most of the people that were coming to me were younger, most of them were struggling with a self body acceptance journey, and a lot of people [were] in eating disorder recovery. A lot of people who were going through the things that I went through and were looking to me for advice, I was like, “‘Maternal’ is not my vibe, but ‘cool aunt’ where you can come over and bitch about your parents and stay overnight, and we can craft and whatever — that's me.” So I started calling myself “cool aunt.”

And then, a month or so ago, Tessa Violet, who is a big TikTokker, did a video where she said that she had a holy trinity of people that if she saw their videos, she’d have a blessed day. And she called me the father [of that trinity.] And I was like, holy shit — I got 10,000 followers overnight from Tessa Violet calling me “the father.”

So then I had a bunch of mostly Gen Z’ers showing up being like, “Uh, why isn't ‘the father’ in your bio yet?” [Laughs] And I was like, “‘Cause I feel weird calling myself 'the father?’” And so then I was like: “‘Dad. ‘Dad’ works. I feel like I'm more ‘Dad’ than ‘Father.’” And so then I was like, “Oh, I can be ‘aunt dad.’"

Big Dad Energy.

BM: Yeah. And I was like, “‘Aunt dad' is good.”

Have you gotten a chance to meet Tessa yet?

BM: We actually have a coffee set up for this week. We had planned to do it right after the thing, but then I had to travel, and she had things happening. It’ll be the first time that I'm meeting someone in person.

You’ve garnered a lot of attention for how you move through and think about the body neutrality movement. Did that surprise you? And what did you like to see happening in the future, both within the movement and with your relationship to it?

BM: Yeah, it’s been such a journey. Obviously [in] the video of mine that took off in 2020 that like started this whole thing, I called myself body-positive, and it still says that on my photography website. I call myself “the body-positive photographer” ‘cause I think when you're on camera, there is something about wanting to look a certain way or present a certain way or feel a certain way about yourself in your body, right? 

Body neutrality is something that I came around to a little bit later. It’s an intensely personal philosophy, which I feel like I always have to clarify that it's really helpful for me in my daily life, through eating disorder recovery, through operating as a human in a body moving through this world not wanting to think about it every moment of the day, right? Just trying to take all of the barriers out of the way for myself.

But, like, the elastic waistbands and loose clothes and just generally allowing myself to move through the world without thinking about my body as much as possible has been so incredibly helpful for me. And I guess I'm not surprised that it's hit with other people. I think that a lot of people probably didn't know that that was an option because we are not fed that. Like, the fact that I didn't find that until my mid-thirties is mind-blowing.

But I am also very cognizant of the fact that it's not helpful on a societal scale. “Let's not talk about bodies” doesn't really work in terms of dismantling fatphobia, in terms of dealing with racism and ableism and all of the things that go along with that.

So it is a helpful philosophy for me. I think that there's a lot of… I don't wanna say “walking on eggshells,” but there's a lot of trepidation around labels because they are constantly changing, and the narrative around all of the labels is constantly changing as people learn more. And then, as something becomes popular, obviously, there’s always some backlash to that; literally, there was some dude who commented on one of my videos who was like, “Can't wait for the backlash to body neutrality in 2024.” And I was like, that's valid; it’s going to happen the same way that there's a backlash to body positivity. I don't know what the next thing is, but I do know that this is helpful for me right now, and here's why.

That said, fat liberation is the end goal, right? It doesn't have to be one or the other. I had somebody do a stitch to one of my videos one time where somebody had asked me for advice about wearing one of my playsuits. Like, it’s a flying squirrel outfit. It is literally just a big rectangle. I feel so comfortable in those things. And this was somebody who was asking how she could start feeling comfortable in that, ‘cause she thought it was really cute but was afraid that she wouldn't feel cute in it wearing it out of the house. And so I was trying to give some concrete advice on how to start wearing clothes that you feel uncomfortable in, in your own house.

Get comfortable in your body. How does your body feel in this thing? How do I move in this thing? And then focusing on the feeling of it. And then when you walk out of the world, when you're feeling more comfortable in it, it's easier to move.

Anyway, this person did like a whole thing about how that was such a bullshit, unhelpful response because it does nothing to tackle fatphobia. And I was like, “Yeah, you know what else doesn't tackle fatphobia? Her not wearing the outfit.”

There's no concrete, actionable advice that I can give someone to go end fatphobia tomorrow. But I can help hype people up to help and get comfortable in their own skin so that hopefully they can go out into the world with a little bit more confidence and then take the energy out of worrying about their body and put it into that other thing. Because I feel we get so focused inwards that we're not able to tackle the bigger issue, which is the whole point.

This seed was planted for me a couple of years ago. Before I was even really on this track. I did a yoga class with Dana Falsetti. I followed them on Instagram and then saw they were coming to my yoga studio to do a workshop. And I was like, “Fuck yes, I’m going to that.” And at the time, my brain didn't wrap around it, but at the time, I was really a straight-sized person in this room listening to this thing about how to take up space and how to ground yourself, how to spread, and how to move your fat outta the way and how to create room for your belly when you're in certain positions and all of these things that are now incredibly useful to me.

But at the time, one of the things that Dana said in that workshop that really stuck with me, and I've tried to drive home a lot, is that it doesn't matter if you like your body every day. The point is not to love what you see in the mirror every day. The point is to say, “Okay, that's what I see in the mirror. Yesterday, I liked it. But I'm cool, I like myself, and I still am worthy of going out to the world, taking up space, moving through this world, being successful, being loved, all these things, regardless of whatever this is. Whatever it looks like, whatever I think about it, it doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that I am a human.”

So one of the most viral videos is “Bi Wife Energy: Director’s Cut.” So if someone were to try to find a person with B.W.E., what would they be looking for?

BM: Uh, wow. I wish I had brought Will with me.

I get a lot of like, “Where'd you find that, on Amazon? How do I get one of my own?”

It's available, just not under Prime.

BM: Right? We’ve been together for almost ten years, and we were both very different people when we found each other.

I always joke that I found the model without a beard, and then I upgraded over time. But I feel like he has grown and learned and adapted and become more of that human that you see in those videos, the same way that I have done the same. But I think a baseline of just like respect for women, for humans of all sorts, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to sit in feeling and like emote and show feeling. A beard doesn't hurt.

From the moment I started dating him, the one thing that, as we have always said — my friends and I — was just that he is unapologetically himself in every situation. He frolics; when he has too much to drink, he literally skips and frolics, and he dances.

Not afraid to dance. So glorious.

BM: He dances so much. And he sings so much. I have auditory issues, so sometimes the singing is a lot in our house. He gets sad about that. But yeah.

It's so hard to pin down. And the thing is, we've had our issues, too. And I'm hesitant to talk about a lot of that on social media. I think that a lot of people on social media are processing trauma and relationships and boundaries and figuring out what those things are, so I'm hesitant… it's difficult to portray nuance, right? That when you’ve been with someone for as long as we have, and we have grown as people together. We have gone to therapy together. We are in a very different relationship than we used to be, and it's so good. I'm so grateful that we worked through those things and stuck it out, and it's so hard to portray that in a situation where you don't know what other people are going through. You don't.

And you have a time limit of three minutes at the most [to explain things on TikTok].

BM: Exactly. You can't tell people whether it's right for them to go to therapy and stick it out or whether it's time to cut the cord.

But yeah. I think being with someone who is so willing to be in the shit together and work it out together is really important.

I was rather amused because there are a lot of sartorial choices that he had in that video that reminded me of a hobbit.

BM: [Laughs] He would be so happy about that!

There was a really good TikTok that went viral about how the ideal husband is Samwise Gamgee. And I was like, “Yeah, sounds like that would align really well with her partner.”

BM: Yeah. He loves florals. He's been incorporating more florals. I feel like one of the ones that people feel like is very hobbit-y was the St. Patrick’s Day that he was singing “Danny Boy” and has suspenders and his little green things. But yeah. He wears a lot of robes, and not a lot of clothes a lot of times.

Not afraid of a vest.

BM: No, not afraid of a vest.

You're known for friendly, inclusive, sometimes vulnerable approaches to subjects as varied as skincare and hair tutorials, all the way to mental health. 

Do you picture someone specific you're talking to when you make a video? Do your ideas come from the spur-of-the-moment musing, or are they premeditated?

BM: I wish they were premeditated; that would make my life so much easier, ‘cause I could pre-plan content. Almost everything is off-the-cuff or spur-of-the-moment.

If I am replying to a specific comment, then I think I am sort of… I don’t wanna say picturing that person. I have aphantasia; I can't picture anything in my head. But I am sort of speaking specifically and directly to that person. I think generally, I just talk to a friend. I talk to someone that I like, who likes me, who I'm comfortable with.

Unless there's something that has sparked… If I saw a video that frustrated me or something happened in my life that frustrated me. And I guess even then I'm speaking to a friend ‘cause I'm venting my frustration. I'm not angry at the person who's listening to me. I'm assuming that the person who's listening to me is on the same page and understands where I'm coming from.

Sort of like your “If I Were To FaceTime You” videos.

BM: Yeah, a little bit like that.

Which is more surprising that it got traction to you? Grandad walks, or “not my circus, not my monkeys,” and why?

BM: Ahhh! “Not my circus, not my monkeys!” Grandad walks was just something about… I know that my bio says “aunt dad,” but octogenarian art teacher is my style. Two of my most viral videos were crying about the grandpa in my neighborhood who was walking with his wife and then wasn't walking with his wife, and I thought she died and was crying and whatever. One of my first viral videos was my grandfather’s ashes showing up in a box my parents sent me. Anyway, I have had a lot of grandparent content. Sure. And I have very much grandma vibes going with the aunt dad vibes. So there was something about grandpa walk or granddad walk that I felt like, “Okay, people will resonate with this. I should just tell them.”

This is on-brand.

BM: This is on-brand. This is something that is very helpful for me, and it's on-brand, and I feel like people will dig it.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys” was literally over Christmas, hanging out with family, and it was a conversation I was having with my therapist before I left where I was just like: “Palms up. They are adults. They can handle themselves.” It was the first time my partner's family and my family were having Christmas together.

Ooh, that’s loaded, yeah.

BM: And I was like, “I don't have to micromanage anyone. If someone is cranky and they need to take a nap, they can decide that they're cranky and they need to take a nap. And it's not my responsibility to be like, ‘Are you okay? What do you need? Do you need it to be quieter? Should I turn on the music?” That's not my job. And so we were literally just hanging out, and I had my glass of wine, and it was just for myself. Just for me. And I walked into the bathroom, and I just like said the thing.

Yeah. I fully did not expect that one to just like go viral on its own. And then I have not had many sounds take off. So for it to not only take off on TikTok but also on Instagram… I’ve had people that I went to college with texting me, being like, “Did I just hear your voice?” Yes, yes, you did.

But I feel like that's the thing, right? Sometimes it's just the thing that you need to hear yourself that ends up resonating for [others.]

What is one of your favorite TikTok that you uploaded or that you are surprised with, or one that you wish that had gotten more attention? Say, something like your obsession with boob decor?

BM: [Laughs] The first video of mine that ever got removed for community guidelines violations was an audio that was like, “Boobs! Boobies! Boobs, boobs, BOOBS.” And it was just like me throwing a shirt with boobs, earrings with boobs. Earrings with boobs, other earrings with boobs, another shirt with boobs, art with boobs — all just in a row. And then it got removed for community guidelines violations. And it was my first one ever, and I was like…

Boo, hiss, tomatoes.

BM: Yeah. Boo, hiss, tomatoes …

I don't think I have like one video that I wish had done better, but I do sometimes get sad that the things that I know — my audience and the people especially who have been with me for a long time — I get incredibly good feedback about eating videos, about reminders to eat and cooking content that's not cooking-focused. It's more about like, “Yeah, sure, I made this thing; now I'm eating it.”

That stuff doesn't tend to perform well on TikTok. I keep it up because it has some of the best engagement. I know that people want to see it, and that's the thing that I literally get letters about. It's reaching the people it needs to reach. And I know there are more people who need to see it, so I wish that that could get more traction, but I also understand why it doesn't, you know.

What was I surprised [by?] Oh, my God. My most viral video ever, [that] my partner called arguably my worst TikTok, is the stitch of the waterbed video.

So like some guy was like, “Oh, do you remember water beds?” And I was like, “I grew up on a water bed growing up.”

How’s your back?

BM: My back is shit. [Laughs]

But like, yeah, just told the story about growing up in a water bed and how when I came home from college with a boyfriend who was staying with us for the first time, my dad over-inflated the water bed so that we would literally just like roll apart from each other. I posted that video right as the new Conjuring movie came out, which I guess had a water bed in it. So there was some sort of weird magic of the algorithm that made some…

Weird confluence of interests.

BM: Yes. But that blew up, and it was like, “How is the — what?!” But that's just a random anecdote. It's not the type of thing that reaches people, you know?

I think the wildest thing that has ever happened was last January. I was doing this unboxing series; my parents moved out of their house, and they sent me a whole bunch of bins of stuff in there. And so I was just rating all of the stuff that they gave me. And then it turned out in one of the bins was my grandfather's ashes. And at was sort of like, “What?… Okay. That's, I think that's the closing of this series. 'Cause what just happened?”

And so that video blew up, and then there was one right after that, and then another one right after that. I had only ever had one video get over a million views before, and in the course of two weeks, I had three. My account doubled overnight. And it was just one of those weird like, “Oh! I don't know why the algorithm is shining down upon me right now, but they have decided.”

So you now have around 320,000 followers. Congratulations. side note. That's about the population of Pittsburgh.

BM: [Laughs] That’s ridiculous!

But wonderful in its own way, you know?

BM: Yes.

What kind of doors has that opened for you? Is there something that you didn't expect about having such a huge following?

BM: It’s funny: I am really excited about some things that are coming up. I've had some brands that I have been hyping on my own for free for the last few years because I use them and wear them.

Side note: How did the sunscreen [trials] go on your trip?

BM: So good! I've been using a new one every day since I got home. I used almost that entire bottle in the Dominican Republic ‘cause I was putting it on multiple times a day, every day. But I want to make a video about this, actually. It was so awesome, 'cause I was just out and working and sitting by the pool and on the beach and all the things, so I wasn't washing my face in between putting it on. It never got gross or grimy. Highly recommend. People have reached out that I'm really excited about working with because this is all new to me.

There's a weird thing in the influencer world where everything feels like it happens behind a curtain, and there's not a lot of like pay transparency. And I think that I am very well positioned as a small business owner, as an artist who has had to stand my ground in terms of setting my pricing, as an actor who has worked in commercials and knows how much people get paid and how much brands get paid, who is still a member of SAG-AFTRA. There's a lot of “You wanna pay me how much for what kind of usage? Are you fucking kidding me?!” And so I've mostly said no to things. But I have my own full-time job; I don't need to say yes. And so I understand why people do.

I'm excited that same way that I had a survival job while building my photography business and was able to turn down a lot of work, keep my rate where I wanted it to be, and then leave my job when it felt like the right time and make a living out of it. I now have photography as my full-time job, and I’m able to do this stuff, say no to all the things I don't want to do, and keep my rate where I want it to be.

So now, hopefully, the plan is I can start splitting my time a little bit between those things, which is helpful. Also, those playsuits have sold out [on] Evan’s website, like, three times.

That’s wild.

BM: That’s literally from him just sending me a playsuit ‘cause I loved it so much.

Do you have any advice for those who are newly identifying as bi or queer, and/or any advice you wish you could give to your younger self before you came out?

BM: I mean, I wish I could tell myself to just come out. That you're not making out with girls when you're drunk because you're drunk. [Laughs] You know?

I get a lot of messages from people — specifically, women who are bi women who haven't come out yet, who are in het-presenting relationships, whether that's long term relationships or married — who are just, like, “How do I do this? What do I do?”

My hope is that anyone who is in a committed, long-term relationship with someone has love and trust with that person and a deep understanding on a soul level with that person. And after doing your own work on How do I feel about this? Why do I feel the need to say this? What is it that is burning inside of me? This is who I am. This is something that I want to declare for myself… I think sitting down and having a conversation with a partner is a really important part of being open with one another and being transparent with one another.

It hurts me, the number of messages that I get from people who are like, “I wish that I could do this, but I don't think I'm worthy of this,” or “I don't know how my partner will respond,” or “I dunno how people will respond.”

Everyone obviously has to do it in their own time, and I don't think coming out is even required. I literally told my partner and then called, like, four friends ‘cause we were in lockdown, I wasn’t seeing anyone. And I was like, “What, am I gonna call everybody right now?” Some do. But, but I was like, “I'm gonna call a couple of people that, if this were them, I would be hurt that they hadn't told me.”

I posted a video on TikTok, and then within thirty minutes, I got a FaceTime from another random friend who just saw my video, and she was like, “I'm so excited!”

But I think just be honest with yourself. It doesn't have to be some big thing, and it doesn't have to be a declaration to the world. It can just be an acceptance. “Okay, this is what I'm doing now. This is who I am.”

** This interview has been truncated and edited for brevity and clarity.