Actress Julienne Davis is opening up about how she received death threats and lost longtime friends and acting jobs after publicly proclaiming her conservative beliefs.
In a Fox News op-ed published this week, Davis said she knew her decision “to come out of the conservative closet and admit to my peers that I was a conservative in Hollywood” was “one of the more risky decisions of my life” that “could hurt my career as an actress.”
After being approached to write opinion pieces for a “right-of-center political magazine,” the actress said she “was faced with two options.”
“Option 1: I could start apologizing to all my Hollywood liberal friends and associates who’d been shocked by my writing and tell them: ‘I didn’t really mean it … it was a paid gig and I was simply doing it for the work,'” Davis wrote.
“Option 2: I could have the courage of my convictions and continue down the conservative path,” she explained.
Option 1, Davis said, meant self-censorship: “I would have to nod and agree with all the constant comments and wild accusations against President Trump – ‘the racist,’ ‘the misogynist,’ ‘the one who is trying to destroy the world.'”
The Los Angeles-born star ultimately chose option 2, saying she “refused to be a coward and be untrue to myself. I believed my path to be the more honest albeit more painful option.”
“Since then I haven’t fared well. My ‘unfriendings’ on social media have been many – from acquaintances and close working associates to good friends – including even my best friend,” Davis wrote.
The model and singer said she was inundated with “very public insults from Hollywood peers on social media and elsewhere have been numerous,” and has “been attacked with obscenities, called a racist, and had one person tell me he hoped I would die.”
While blocking out the criticism aimed at her, Davis said she “noticed a particular upsurge in unfriendings immediately after the Charlottesville incident.”
“And of course, I know why: The media of choice for the left – including CNN, MSNBC, HuffPost, the New York Times and the Washington Post – all reported the incident in such a way as if to make it appear that all Trump supporters are Nazis,” she wrote.
The actress said she is “truly grateful for” her “more liberal friends who haven’t ditched me over politics.”
Davis is looking forward to furthering her career in Hollywood, admitting that “it will be interesting.” With no plan to “back down and lie to get ahead,” she’s “ready to have to take my career into my own hands in trying to find producers and funding for my own screenplay to get my film cast, shot, produced and distributed.”
“As one very high-up industry (and closeted conservative) person said to me recently: “Get back in that closet if you want to get that film made,” she wrote.
“Thanks for the tip, but there’s no going back. Wish me luck,” Davis concluded.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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