Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, who split from her husband of nine years in July, says she’s in love with her best friend, a woman named Rayya Elias, who was recently diagnosed with incurable pancreatic and liver cancer.
In a lengthy post on her Facebook page on Wednesday, Gilbert says the terminal diagnosis uncovered her true feelings for her longtime friend, and those feelings led to Gilbert’s divorce from Jose Nunes, whom she described falling for at the end of her best-selling memoir as “Felipe.” (The post was confirmed by Gilbert’s publicist at Riverhead Books, Jynne Martin.)
“Something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya’s diagnosis,” she wrote in the post. “Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya.”
Gilbert says she is making her relationship with Elias public because such “truth and transparency” make her life easier and more ethical.
She asked her readers for their love: “I’m walking through this cancer journey with her, not only as her friend, but as her partner … Whatever extra love you might be carrying around in your hearts right now, could you direct some this way?”
Read the full post below.
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