Maria Bello is out and proud after revealing details about her same-sex relationship in an essay published in the New York Times.

The 46 year-old actress, best known for roles in Coyote Ugly and Prisoners, has written about her serious relationship with long time girlfriend Clare, and how she finally told her 12 year-old son that she was involved with a woman.

Bello wrote how her son, whom she had with producer Dan McDermott, asked her if she was in a relationship with anyone. She wrote, “He was right; I was with someone romantically and I hadn’t told him.

“I had become involved with a woman who was my best friend, and, as it happens, a person who is like a godmother to my son.”

Bello explained how, when looking through old photos, she found one of herself and Clare before they started seeing eachother romantically. “I came across a black and white one of my best friend and me taken on New Year’s Eve.”

“We looked so happy, I couldn’t help but smile. I remembered how we had met two years before…We had an immediate connection but didn’t think of it as romantic or sexual. She was one of the most beautiful, charming, brilliant and funny people I had ever met, but it didn’t occur to me, until that soul-searching moment in my garden, that we could perhaps choose to love each other romantically.

“Whomever I love, however I love them, whether they sleep in my bed or not, or whether I do homework with them or share a child with them, ‘love is love,'” she concluded.