Kristen Stewart Reflects on Robert Pattinson Romance, Coming Out: I ‘Wanted to Enjoy My Life’

“Every day I get older, life gets easier,” Kristen Stewart told Harper’s Bazaar UK, in an interview published on Tuesday

Kristen Stewart is opening up about why she and her ex-boyfriend Robert Pattinson chose to keep their romance so private.

The Twilight costars famously started dating after starring together in the 2008 movie, with their pairing dominating headlines as they remained together during the franchise’s follow-up films. But despite the media attention, both chose to stay mum about their relationship even while promoting their projects — a decision Stewart says she and Pattinson, 33, made together.

“When me and Rob were together, we did not have an example to go by,” the 29-year-old actress recalls in the October cover story for Harper’s Bazaar UK, published Tuesday. “So much was taken from us that, in trying to control one aspect, we were just like, ‘No, we will never talk about it. Never. Because it’s ours.’ ”

Back in 2016, Stewart said that same excessive media coverage surrounding her relationship with Pattinson ultimately contributed to their breakup.

The two initially split in 2012, when photos emerged of Stewart kissing her married Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders. They reconciled shortly after but ultimately called it quits in 2013.

“People wanted me and Rob to be together so badly that our relationship was made into a product,” she previously told The New York Times Style Magazine. “It wasn’t real life anymore and that was gross to me. It’s not that I want to hide who I am or hide anything I’m doing in my life. It’s that I don’t want to become a part of a story for entertainment value.”

Since her split from Pattinson, Stewart has learned how to better weather the attention.

“Every day I get older, life gets easier,” she told Harper’s Bazaar UK in Tuesday’s interview, explaining that the openness of a younger generation of actors in the press has allowed her to shed any fear she had about the consequences of using her voice.

That same fearlessness has translated to her decision to be open with her sexuality. Back in 2017, Stewart said during her Saturday Night Live monologue that she was “like, so gay” — though now stressed to Harper’s Bazaar UK that she doesn’t like labels.

“I just think we’re all kind of getting to a place where — I don’t know, evolution’s a weird thing — we’re all becoming incredibly ambiguous,” she said. “And it’s this really gorgeous thing.”

Stewart has most recently been linked to screenwriter Dylan Meyer, after the two were spotted kissing in New York last month.

As for being public with her sexuality, Stewart recalled to Harper’s Bazaar UK: “I think I just wanted to enjoy my life. And that took precedence over protecting my life, because in protecting it, I was ruining it. What, you can’t go outside with who you’re with? You can’t talk about it in an interview? I was informed by an old school mentality, which is — you want to preserve your career and your success and your productivity, and there are people in the world who don’t like you, and they don’t like that you date girls, and they don’t like that you don’t identify as a quote unquote ‘lesbian,’ but you also don’t identify as a quote unquote ‘heterosexual.’ And people like to know stuff, so what the f— are you?”

“I have fully been told, ‘If you just like do yourself a favor, and don’t go out holding your girlfriend’s hand in public, you might get a Marvel movie.’ I don’t want to work with people like that.”