Julie Bowen has a modern view on sexuality.
The Modern Family star got candid about her experience with a same-sex romance during a recent chat with Bachelor Nation's Becca Tilley. Though Julie has "always been straight" in the conventional sense, she noted on the Oct. 31 episode of her Quitters podcast that she was once "in love with a woman for a while, but she didn't love me back."
"It never really took off, so I never really had to challenge my concept of my sexuality," the actress continued, adding that it's "ridiculous" to put labels on human sexuality. "What you do with your body should not be the first thing that we know about people or care about. That's your business."
The subject came up when Becca, who has been dating Hayley Kiyoko for more than four years, detailed her own journey with sexuality. Looking back at how her relationship with the "Girls Like Girls" artist began, Becca said they fell in love "so fast" that she never had time to ponder the questions: "What is my label? How do I identify?"
"I'm just attracted to people," the Bachelor alum explained. "I'm attracted to men. I'm attracted to women—specifically Hayley, [who] I fell in love with."
And though Becca doesn't have an issue with the concept of coming out, she hopes "that one day people don't have to come out because it causes a lot of stress."
She added, "Life is already really hard. Falling in love should be a natural and beautiful thing that people don't have to explain to anybody."
Becca went public with Hayley in May, after making a cameo in the singer's "For the Girls" music video. While the two never publicly spoke about their relationship until this year, Becca said she and Hayley were open about it to people and did not consider their romance to be a "secret."
"I never wanted it to come across that she was a secret," Becca said, explaining that she prefers the term "private" because the idea of a secret has a "connection to shame, and I never wanted it to feel like I felt shame."
For her part, Julie has also been very private about her love life in recent years. The star, who was married to Scott Phillips from 2004 to 2018 and with whom she shares three sons, joked in January that she was actually in "retirement" from dating—though there is one celeb she wouldn't mind getting to know.
"You're asking me if I'd come out of retirement for Harry Styles?" Bowen quipped on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. "Oh, hell yeah. Him? Look at him!"