Eat, Pray, Love author reveals lesbian relationship
LOS ANGELES— In July, author Elizabeth Gilbert announced that her relationship with Brazilian businessman José Nunes — he was called Felipe in the “love” part of her bestselling 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love — was coming to an end.
On Wednesday, Gilbert revealed the reason for the split: She has fallen in love with Rayya Elias, a woman who’s been her best friend for years and who was recently diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer.
“I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya,” Gilbert wrote in a Facebook post. “And I have no more time for denying that truth. The thought of someday sitting in a hospital room with her, holding her hand and watching her slide away, without ever having let her (or myself!) know the extent of my true feelings for her . . . well, that thought was unthinkable.”
Elias is a Syrian-born American musician and filmmaker, and author of the 2013 memoir Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, from the Middle East to the Lower East Side, to which Gilbert wrote the introduction.
Gilbert confirmed that her relationship with Elias was the reason for her separation from Nunes.
“For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes,” she wrote. “Here is where we stand now: Rayya and I are together. I love her, and she loves me. I’m walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner.”
Gilbert and Elias have been friends for more than 15 years. The two were profiled last year by the Sydney Morning Herald, which described them as “clasping hands, finishing each other’s sentences, Elias absentmindedly fixing Gilbert’s hair,” and displaying “a kind of intimacy only found in female friendships and, even then, not always.”
In her Facebook post, Gilbert explained why she chose to go public with the news.
“I need to live my life in truth and transparency, even more than I need privacy, or good publicity, or prudence, or other people’s approval or understanding,” she wrote.