Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author best known for her New York Times Bestselling novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017), Daisy Jones & the Six (2019), One True Loves (2016), Malibu Rising (2021), Carrie Soto Is Back (2022), and Atmosphere (2025). Her novels center on women navigating modern society, particularly in male-dominated fields, and her works have been featured in major book clubs and adapted for television and film. Yet many readers remain unaware of one key facet of her identity: Reid is proudly bi.
Born on December 20, 1983, Reid spent her early years in Maryland before relocating, at age 12, to Acton, Massachusetts. As a teenager, she embraced an androgynous style and outspoken demeanor, drawing criticism from peers who would ask her passively aggressively: “Why can’t you dress more like a girl? Why don’t you do your nails? Why do you talk that way? Can’t you be a little bit quieter?”
After graduating from Emerson College with a degree in media studies, Reid moved to Los Angeles, working as a casting assistant and later as a high school educator to make ends meet. A period of writing for the TV show Resident Advisors (2015) left her restless, prompting her to explore the possibility of becoming a fiction writer. She began crafting short stories for friends, eventually writing her first novella at the age of 24 and securing a literary agent.
Her early novels — Forever, Interrupted (2013), After I Do (2014), Maybe in Another Life (2015), and One True Loves — established her as a skilled chronicler of love and loss. These romance-driven dramas, while well-received, were not breakout hits. That changed in 2017 with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a glittering historical fiction about a fictional Old Hollywood starlet who reveals her bisexuality and lifelong love for another woman, Celia St. James. Structured around interviews with each of Evelyn’s seven husbands, the novel drew inspiration from real-life figures like Elizabeth Taylor and even Tab Hunter.
Evelyn Hugo became a cultural phenomenon, buoyed by TikTok during the pandemic, translated into more than 20 languages, and nominated for Goodreads’ Book of the Year. Its film adaptation is currently in development. Reid expanded this universe with Daisy Jones & the Six (2019), Malibu Rising (2021), and Carrie Soto Is Back (2022) — each spotlighting formidable women in male-dominated arenas: a rockstar, a surfer, and a tennis champion. These interconnected stories, peppered with Easter eggs (like the recurring tabloid Vivant), have collectively sold over 21 million copies worldwide. Daisy Jones was adapted into an Amazon Prime series (for which Stevie Nicks pitched ideas for a second season) and was picked as a recommended book by Reese Witherspoon’s book club, and her books, Malibu Rising and Carrie Soto, are also slated for screen adaptations.
Despite her public success, Reid has kept her life private. Married to screenwriter Alex Jenkins Reid, with whom she shares a daughter, she long avoided public discussions of her sexuality — until her 2025 Time cover story. “It has been hard at times to see people dismiss me as a straight woman, but I also didn’t tell them the whole story,” she confessed, revealing her bisexuality. She described the erasure she faced in the ’90s: “The messages about bisexuality were that you just want attention or it was a stop on the way to gayville. I found that very painful, because I was being told that I didn’t know myself, but I did.” She has also noted how her husband has supported her journey and encouraged her to express herself through her writing about her identity.
After a brief hiatus, Reid returned with Atmosphere (2025), a NASA-set romance about an astronaut and ground control specialist during the 1980s. Meticulously researched with guidance from a retired flight director, the novel is already slated for a global film release.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is more than a literary sensation; she is a storyteller who elevates queer, complex women to the forefront. Her work — like her identity — defies easy categorization, and she now claims her place as a bisexual icon with the same boldness her characters embody.