Yvonne Orji reveals that she’s still a virgin at 39

‘There’s a lot of pent-up energy up in here with me,’ actor says

Yvonne Orji recently revealed that she was still planning on saving herself for marriage.

On a September episode of Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast, the Insecure star shared that she was still a virgin at 39 years old. The interview is now going viral.

When Handler asked Orji if she was still a virgin, the actor confirmed that she was. Handler quipped, “Oh my God, I love this. This is the most original guest we’ve ever had on. And what are you, 39? Oh my God, that dam is going to break one day, baby.”

The Bamboozled by Jesus author replied, saying that she worried for the man who would take her virginity: “People were like, ‘Oh, Yvonne, pray for him, whoever he is.’ There’s a lot of pent-up energy up in here with me.”

Perhaps best known for her role as Molly Carter in HBO’s Insecure, the actor first revealed that she was a virgin in a 2017 interview with People.

“I wasn’t going to hide it just because I’m on TV. I’m grounded in who I am,” she told the outlet at the time. “Before any of [the fame] happened, I sat down with myself and with God and thought, ‘When I make it, how do you want me to represent you while I’m here?’ It was like, ‘OK, I know why I’m here. It’s to make you proud.’”

The actor noted to the outlet that she has received lots of questions about her virginity over the years.

“People ask about it because they’re curious or they may not understand,” she said. “How will they ever understand if I don’t talk about it? I can inform your curiosity, as opposed to everyone being in the dark and just sort of creating their own narrative about it.”

Yvonne Orji attends the 2023 Urbanworld Film Festival - Day 3 at AMC 34th Street on 3 November 2023 in New York City (Getty Images)

The Insecure alum has remained notoriously tight-lipped about her love life, but from 2018 to 2019, the actor publicly dated former Cleveland Browns linebacker Emmanuel Acho. She announced that she was newly single during the 2019 Valentine’s Day episode of her Jesus & Jollof podcast with co-host Luvvie Ajayi.

She told listeners: “I have seen God’s MO so many times, that like, in the way that you can be like, ‘Aw man, I thought this was it! I thought this was the one!’ God be like, ‘Oh, that’s what you thought? I got the goods for you.’”

Orji has long been an advocate of destigmatising virginity, and in 2017, the actor even headlined a TEDx talk, and made a case for why “the wait is sexy.” Orji explained to the LA Times that during her TEDx talk, she wasn’t trying to force her beliefs on others but simply articulating her perspective.

“It was explaining to people why I waited and what worked for me, but then it’s also saying, ‘Hey, girl, I get it.’ My 17-year-old self was not trying to be waiting, but I got bamboozled by Jesus,” she said.