Emily Hampshire Says Famed 'Schitt's Creek' Scene Helped Her Come Out
Emily Hampshire explains how a Schitt’s Creek scene helped her realize she’s pansexual
Back in Season One of Schitt’s Creek, Dan Levy’s David Rose has a conversation with Emily Hampshire’s Stevie Budd about his character’s sexual orientation by using wine preferences as a metaphor. The infamous scene is how David explained to Stevie that he’s pansexual (“I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine and. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé”) and is just one of the reasons why the show has been praised and beloved by the LGBTQ+ community, but it turns out that silly scene actually helped actress Hampshire understand that she is pansexual, too.
In that scene, David Rose lists off all the types of wines he’s enjoyed over the years and famously says, “I like the wine and not the label,” meaning he’s capable of falling in love with all types of wines.
Hampshire revealed in a new interview with Demi Lovato on their 4D with Demi Lovato podcast that she can’t believe she didn’t know about the term “pansexual” until she and Levy filmed that scene, though it wasn’t until years later that Hampshire would use the term to define herself.
“[David Rose] says, ultimately he likes the wine, not the label and that he’s pansexual. I had never heard the word pansexual before,” Hampshire shared. “I’ve always considered myself super knowledgeable about LGBTQ+ stuff just because everybody in my life, my friends, are all mostly LGBTQ+ people, but I didn’t know this.”
Years later, Hampshire began dating songwriter Teddy Geiger (they were briefly engaged), who is trans. Hampshire said she was bewildered by the online chatter about her relationship and said that a conversation with Levy helped her to come out.
“Cut to about five years later. I was dating someone and I saw on these message boards people being like, ‘Is Stevie a lesbian?’ ‘Is Emily gay?’ ‘Who’s Emily?’” Hampshire remembered. “I said to Dan, I was like, ‘This is so weird. What am I?’ Because I truly just fell in love with a person and where they were on the gender spectrum did not matter to me. And since then it really doesn’t matter to me. I have to like the person. I’m really attracted to a person’s vibe.”
And then Levy said the most David Rose thing ever and told Hampshire, “You’re pansexual. Don’t you watch our show?”
Although she told Lovato during the podcast that her ideal “utopia” is one with no labels, except “human,” she does still embrace the label and celebrated Pansexual Pride Day in 2019 by posting the wine store scene on Instagram and writing, “I find myself regularly explaining my own pansexuality to people with, ‘It’s like, I’m into the wine not the label.’ Share this with someone who might not know anyone like David …or me.”
