Actress Karrueche Tran recently sat down for an interview with Madame Noire and opened up about growing up with a gay father. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this, but my father is gay,” the Emmy-winning actress said. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this because I don’t realize that that is not necessarily normal, you know? I live my life as me and it’s like, ‘oh, that’s just my dad.’ But when I tell people sometimes, they’re like, ‘really?!’ And he’s not [transitioning like Caitlyn Jenner], but he is homosexual, he is gay.”

Tran said she was still very young when she learned of her father’s sexuality. 

“I knew from like middle school. Even in elementary school, I knew something was different,” she said. “And I don’t know how I knew or how I even knew what gay was being so young, but I think when you’re younger, you catch onto things and you watch TV, so I’ve always kind of known. As I grew older, we had certain talks, or I talked with my mom, and it just is what it was.”

When asked to give advice to the Kardashian family, who faced many questions from the public during Jenner’s transition, Tran emphasized the importance of accepting people as they want to be.

“If you love them, you have to support them,” she said.

The actress added that she understands the difficulty of coming out and the feeling of needing to be accepted by loved ones. 

“I watched the special with the Jenners and her transitioning and it touched me because I understood their pain, where they were coming from,” Tran said. “It’s a hard pill to swallow just to have that transition. It’s different, not a lot of people go through those things.”

The Hollywood star hopes to continue seeing people of all backgrounds showing love for each other. 

“Love conquers all. It doesn’t matter what race, what age, how you look or anything,” she said. “Love is love.”  

Tran touched on a number of other topics during her interview with Madame Noire, including the burden of being known as Chris Brown‘s ex-girlfriend.

“Calling somebody Chris Brown’s girlfriend is rude,” she said. “I am more than just an ex-girlfriend or girlfriend. Now that I’m working more and doing more, people are realizing that I think.” 

According to Essence, the 33-year-old Los Angeles native made history last month, becoming the first lead actress of Asian American and Pacific Island descent to take home the trophy for either Daytime or Primetime Emmys. Tran earned the award for her performance as Vivian Johnson-Garrett in Popstar! TV’s The Bay.

“I’m so thankful, so blessed, and so grateful!” the TV star said while accepting her award. “I have to thank my The Bay family, who believed in me from day one when nobody did at all.”