Actress Raven-Symone has come a long way since she debuted on The Cosby Show. The decorated thespian, singer, broadway and daytime talk show star has worn many hats and has meant a lot to different generations. By far, her crowning achievement is the people she touched through her iconic Disney Channel series That’s So Raven. The show is currently in its third “soft reboot,” and Raven Symone recently confessed that out of all the futures Raven Baxter could have had, one of them was not her coming out as a lesbian.
Raven Baxter and Raven Symone may share the same name and quirky sense of humor, but they are indeed two different people. Raven Baxter was the fun-loving eldest child of The Baxter family, a San Francisco-based unit consisting of her mother, father, and little brother Cory. Raven also had two best friends, Chelsea and Eddie. Throughout the series, Baxter uses her psychic abilities to navigate high school and get into a lot of hijink. The show picked up decades later with Baxter being a single mother of two, helping her son navigate his own psychic abilities. Raven’s Home is currently in its fifth season.
In real life, Raven Symone became one of the biggest stars on Disney before taking a break from the spotlight. During that time, she went to school, lived her life, and traveled the world. Rumors of Raven’s sexuality had been around for years, and while she does not believe she was ever “in the closet,” many interpret it that way because she was not really in the public eye anymore. That changed when she reemerged as a host on The View before rejoining the Disney Channel.
Raven has been notoriously private over the years, but the now happily married woman is letting fans in on her life with her wife, Miranda Maday, through a series of interviews and social media posts. The happy couple also hosts their own Youtube channel. Raven is very comfortable now sharing her life as a queer woman and experimenting with her gender identity, often sporting more masculine looks that we are used to seeing her in on tv and film.
While Raven is proud of her sexuality, she claims she had no desire for her on-screen counterpart to also be gay. When returning to the role of Raven Baxter, Disney asked her about making the character a queer woman as well. When Raven asked why, the network said so that Baxter could be more in line with her in real life. Raven claims this was a “bad reason” in a recent interview with THEM. She did not see the need to impose her real life on Baxter, especially since it was not something the character had previously displayed.
Fans of That’s So Raven has always known Baxter to be boy-crazy and straight. Symone claims the offer made her “uncomfortable,” and she respectfully declined. “I’m not being myself on this show, I’m being a character. Raven Baxter’s not gay,” she concluded.
