This is a story that’s only scandalous if there was cheating involved, and the specifics suggest there wasn’t. Orange is The New Black writer Lauren Morelli was five months into her first marriage, to a man, when she started working for the Netflix series. Within a few days on set she came to the realization, at the age of 31, that she was gay. Morelli penned an essay on her identity back in May, and it’s a revealing and interesting read. (She’s a writer after all.) Writing Piper and Alex’s gay storyline was cathartic for Morelli, and helped her get in touch with her own sexuality. She’s since filed for divorce, and its an amicable one according to TMZ. What’s more is that Morelli is now dating OITNB actress Samira Wiley, 27, a Julliard trained actress who plays Poussey. Here’s more:

Lauren Morelli, a writer for Orange Is the New Black, and her husband of two years, Steve Basilone, have split – and she’s finding love with one of the show’s female stars, Samira Wiley.

Morelli and Basilone filed for divorce jointly and split amicably, according to documents obtained by TMZ.

In May, the writer penned an essay on Identities.Mic about how she realized she was gay while writing for OITNB.

“I realized I was gay in fall 2012, one of my first days on the set,” wrote Morelli.

And while writing Alex and Piper’s relationship for the hit show, Morelli shared she “constantly felt like a fraud.”

“Accordingly, I was nervous about the first love scene I’d written for Alex and Piper. I loved writing it, loved watching a tenderness emerge in their relationship where passion always seemed to be the ruling principle, but by that time, I was so deep in my own self-doubt that I constantly felt like a fraud,” she explained.

“I was sure it was bleeding into my writing. How could it not? I was married to a man, but I wasn’t straight.”

Morelli added: “I went through it all on set: I fell in love with a woman, and I watched my life play out on screen. And now, as we are gearing up for the release of Season 2, it feels liberating and appropriate to live my life in front of you.”

[From People]

Spoilers for season two of OITNB follow
I’m really reporting on this story because I want to talk about Poussey’s backstory, which was one of my favorites despite how sad it was. Poussey fell in love with a German girl when she was a teenager growing up on a military base. The girlfriend’s father discovered the two of them together and then arranged for Poussey’s father to get reassigned to a base in America, prompting a heartbroken Poussey to pull a gun on him. Wiley spoke German in some of those scenes, and her German was convincingly good. In an interview with The New Republic, Wiley explained that she hadn’t spoken German before, but that a dialect coach was hired to help her. Poussey’s German girlfriend was played by the German actress Nina Rausch.

I mention that because Rausch reminds me a little of Morelli, and I wonder if Morelli actually wrote Poussey’s backstory while she was dating her. It turns out that another writer on OITNB is credited with that episode, Morelli is just listed as an editor. (Did they name the character Morello after her, though? I want to know!)

One thing that Morelli wrote that impressed was that it was was incredibly painful for her to come out despite how much support she had. She wrote “It feels important to say these things in a public way, to record them where they are easily accessible because if I could think and feel them while working in the world’s most supportive environment, surrounded by people in the LGBT community, where being a minority of any sort is joyfully celebrated, I can only venture to imagine the pain, confusion and fear that might have existed otherwise.”

Here’s another photo of Morelli and Wiley headed to the Emmys together. They make a cute couple. Are they on a public bus?

Oooh I think they did name Morello after her!

photo credit: WENN.com, Instagram and Pacific Coast News