Samira Wiley was outed by one of her 'Orange is the New Black' co-stars

Speaking on the 'Nancy' podcast, she said: "Someone from my cast actually, during the interview they were talking about out gay actors in the cast, and they mentioned my name and I saw it in print, and I cried.

"I cried a lot. And I like, tried to get it taken down.

"I had a journey. I wasn't always super open-hearted, but um, yeah.

"More specifically, that's something that somebody took from me. You should be able to come out on your own terms, so that was probably a little deeper."

But Samira is a "strong believer of whatever is supposed to happen will happen" and is accepting of the way her sexuality was made public, though she didn't reveal who had outed her.

The actress - who is married to Lauren Morelli - also believes her experience on the show helped her "fall in love" with herself and thinks it's shaped her attitude towards her sexuality.

She explained: "I wasn't out in the beginning and I think falling in love with Poussey, which is really a thing that happened to me, helped me fall in love with myself as well.

"I think that if I wasn't portraying these characters, I wonder how my own journey with my own sexual orientation, how I would embrace that, how I would walk the world if I wasn't able to embrace the characters that I have been."