Iconic Actor Billy Dee Williams Clears Up “Gender Fluid” Comments: “What the hell is gender fluid?”

In an interview with Esquire magazine, 82-year-old actor Billy Dee Williams described himself using male and female pronouns, which led many to believe he is “gender fluid.”

“I never tried to be anything except myself. I think of myself as a relatively colorful character who doesn’t take himself or herself too seriously,” he told the outlet. “And you see I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine. I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.”

Gender fluid is someone who does not identify or express themselves with a fixed gender role. However, Williams says he identifies as only male. The actor corrected the comments he made in a new interview, stating he was speaking about men embracing their feminine side.

“Well, first of all, I asked last night. I said, ‘What the hell is gender fluid?’ That’s a whole new term,” Williams said. “But what I was talking about was about men getting in touch with their softer side of themselves. There’s a phrase that was coined by Carl G. Jung, who was a psychiatrist, who was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, and they had a splitting of the ways because they had different ideas about the … what do you call it? Consciousness. Unconscious. It’s collective unconsciousness. But he coined a phrase that’s, ‘Anima animus.’ And anima means that is the female counterpart of the male self, and the animus is the male counterpart of the female. So that’s what I was referring to.”

Williams said he doesn’t know what gender fluid is and made it clear that he wasn’t having a conversation about sexual orientation.

“I was talking about men getting in touch with the female side of themselves. I wasn’t talking about sex; I wasn’t talking about being gay or straight,” he said. “People should read [Jung]. I mean, it would be an interesting education for a lot of people.”