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Cassandra Peterson claims she lost 11,000 followers after coming out last year.
The ‘Elvira: Mistress of the Dark’ star revealed in September she had been in a relationship with fitness trainer Teresa ‘T’ Wierson for 19 years and she’s now revealed her decision to speak publicly about her decision drove away many of her “old men” fans.
Speaking on David Yontef’s ‘Behind the Velvet Rope’ podcast, she said: “I knew that there were going to be some horny old men out there who were just not going to like the fact that they didn’t have a chance with me anymore. And I hate to tell them they already didn’t have a chance with me anyway.”
The 70-year-old actress – who gained 60,000 new followers after speaking out – admitted her revelation came as a shock to a lot of people.
She said: “[It] flipped everybody out. Nobody was ready for that. People just said, ‘Elvira, you lied to me. I don’t respect you anymore. Goodbye.’ “
Cassandra previously admitted it had been a “little scary” but “very liberating and a real relief” to open up about her relationship and sexuality, and she praised the LGBTQ community for being “so supportive and sweet”.
She said: “It’s been fantastic. Everybody is happy and thrilled about it.
“I felt the strangest and most worried about my LGBTQ fans because I was thinking, ‘Are they going to think I’m a big hypocrite?’ And that I talk about coming out, being who you are, and then I’m hiding this gigantic secret.”
Cassandra opened up about her relationship with Teresa in her memoir ‘Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark’, explaining how they had met at Gold’s Gym in Hollywood – but she thought she was a man at first.
She wrote: “I couldn’t help noticing one particular trainer, tan, tattooed, and muscular, stalking across the gym floor, knit cap pulled so low over his long brown hair that it nearly covered his eyes.
“Dark and brooding, he gave off such intense energy that when he crossed the enormous gym floor, the waters parted and people stopped in their tracks to stare.
“A typical sexy bad boy, he was unaware he was so charismatic that he garnered his own unofficial fan club.”
The “bad boy” turned out to be Teresa.
Cassandra was married to her manager, Mark Pierson, at the time, but they later split.
It wasn’t until later when Teresa became Cassandra’s trainer and the two developed a friendship, which eventually turned romantic.
