Laverne Cox is embracing her age after years of keeping it a secret. 

For nearly two decades, the Inventing Anna actress would refer to her age as “over 21” until she recently made an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show to dish with the daytime television host about coming to terms with her age. 

“And I was like, ‘Oh if I’m too old, I’ll just be 22, and so for the next two years on my dating apps and online, I was 22 everywhere, and then I didn’t feel comfortable lying so over 21 became my age,” Cox said.

“I was ‘over 21’ from 2002 to 2019,” the 49-year-old said while revealing personal information about her love life. She reflected on a particular time in her life when her 21-year-old boyfriend left her when she was 28 years old. 

After IMDb disclosed her actual age, Cox said, “it was freaking me out. I was having such anxiety,” she told DeGeneres. “I started unpacking all the stories about being older; the stories were that I wasn’t hireable, wasn’t dateable, I wasn’t ‘eff-able’ over a certain age.”

The incident prompted the 49-year-old to seek therapy and work through her issues and anxiety regarding her age. 

As Cox approaches 50 this year, she no longer felt ashamed of her age and disclosed the numerical figure during a speaking engagement in 2019.

“I was at a speaking engagement in Texas in January 2019, and I thought the sky was gonna fall, and it was nothing,” she said.

 While she “thought the sky was going to fall,” it wound up being “like nothing” and showed her that “no one really cares.”

Cox is known for her breakout role as Sophia on the Netflix series 

Orange Is the New Black. While openly discussing her struggles as a transgender woman, she made history as the first transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Watch the full clip of the interview below.