By Natalie Stone
Nico Tortorella is defending his polyamorous sexual identity.
The 29-year-old Younger star discusses his longtime open relationship on the premiere of
Personal Space, Bravo’s new, six-episode digital talk show about romance, relatives and relationships — and PEOPLE’s got an exclusive sneak peek at his candid conversation.
As he’s said before,
Tortorella has been in a polyamorous relationship for 11 years with fitness and lifestyle entrepreneur Bethany Meyers. She identifies as gay, while he identifies as pansexual.
“I’m not in an open relationship so I can go out and just f— whoever I want,” Tortotella explains in the Bravo clip. “For me, it’s more about the ability to emotionally connect with people outside of my primary partner.”
Joining Tortorella and host Greta Titelman for the discussion is Steve Ward, the CEO of master Matchmakers, who expresses shock over the actor’s perspective.
“Wow! That’s like the one thing every girl fears I think,” Ward says. “There’s a whole part of this country in between L.A. and New York where the bulk of these people fear their partner developing an emotional attachment to someone else.”
“The fact of the matter is, we’ve only been shown one story since basically the beginning of time and that’s man, woman and family — and that’s it,” Tortorella explains.
“Are you a polyamorist?” Ward asks.
“That is the word for it, yes,” Tortorella says.
Ward says he doesn’t believe “it’s good practice to invite other people” into a relationship when “you’re talking about having a home and creating a life.”
“If you consider your life to be like a rock-faced wall, you can climb that wall by yourself or you can climb that wall in a group of people, like Nico here would prefer to do,” Ward says. “Or you can climb that wall in tandem, and two people climbing that wall together are more likely to make it to the top easier, more safely than if you have too many people in your group or if you’re just doing it on your own.”
“I’m always climbing the wall with one other person,” Tortorella says, “but that person is just changing.”
This isn’t the first time Tortorella has gotten candid about his relationship. In an interview with
The Advocate earlier this year,
Tortorella opened about how he and Meyers identify themselves.
“I can be emotionally, physically attracted to men,” he said. “I can be emotionally, physically attracted to women. The ‘B’ in LGBTQ-plus has been fought for, for so long. I’m not going to be the person that’s like, ‘No, I need a ‘P,’ I need another letter!’ I stand by people that have paved this way for somebody like me.”
Personal Space premieres Wednesday on BravoTV.com. This article originally appeared on
People.com.