‘One Day at a Time’ Star Mackenzie Phillips Comes out as Bisexual

Mackenzie Phillips is living her truth as a bisexual woman. The One Day at a Time star, 62, opened up about her bisexuality while appearing on the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast with David Yontef Monday. Called a “gay icon” by host Yontef, Phillips responded, “I love that and I also love that I throughout my life have lived on both sides of the curtain.”

“I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve had girlfriends throughout my life. I am neither one nor the other. I love our gay community,” she continued, noting that the addiction center Breathe Life Healing Center where she serves as Director of Referral Relations is “LGBT-owned and operated.” Phillips would go on to say, “I love everybody,” before she joked, “Not everybody, almost.”

Phillips also shared on the podcast about her reconciliation with her family, which includes her half-sisters – actress Bijou Phillips and singer Chynna Phillips – as well as her brother-in-law and Chynna Phillips’s husband, Billy Baldwin. In Phillips’ 2009 memoir High on Arrival, the actress revealed that her father, The Mamas & the Papas singer John Phillips, had an incestuous relationship with her for a decade after he raped her at age 19.

“Had I known the distress it would’ve caused everybody on such a visceral level, I would certainly have considered doing things slightly differently. I certainly would not have decided to not tell my truth, because my truth needed to be told, but I likely would have done it slightly differently,” Phillips said on the podcast of sharing her story. Over the years, however, the star said her family has been able to heal some of its wounds and reconcile.

“Just in case anybody was wondering, there’s a family thread,” she shared. “We all text and we’re all in touch. And we spend time together whenever we can.” After going through so much earlier in her life, Phillips said she’s incredibly proud of herself in so many ways. “Not only did I survive, I actually am thriving,” she said. “And so that is something that I’m proud that I have weathered the storm, but I’m 62 years old. You know, what the eff to be still here. I’m quite often amazed that I’m able to even put together an elusive sentence, let alone a paragraph, let alone help run a treatment center.”