Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira, Says She Has Been in a Relationship With a Woman for Nearly Two Decades
Published Sept. 22 2021, 9:57 a.m. ET
Actress and writer Cassandra Peterson shares explosive details about her personal life in her brand new memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, which came out on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021.
As the creator of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, the era-defining comedy-horror TV and film character, reveals in the new book, she has dated Teresa "T" Wierson for 19 years. So, what's there to know about Cassandra's girlfriend?
Cassandra Peterson and her girlfriend have known each other for 19 years.
With Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, Cassandra takes readers behind the scenes, discussing her most formative experiences. She touches on a freak accident she suffered as a toddler, among many others. But she also looks at plenty of positive memories and shares brand new details about her almost two-decade-long relationship with Teresa "T" Wierson.
Cassandra first met her girlfriend, Teresa, in the early 2000s.
Cassandra and Teresa first met at the Hollywood branch of Gold's Gym. As she explains in Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, she first mistook Teresa for a man.
"Often, when I was doing my pre-workout warm-up on the treadmill, I couldn't help noticing one particular trainer — tan, tattooed, and muscular — stalking across the gym floor, knit cap pulled so low over his long brown hair that it nearly covered his eyes," she writes, per People.
"A typical sexy bad boy, he was unaware he was so charismatic that he'd garnered his unofficial fan club. Watching him from the safety of my treadmill made my heart beat faster and the time pass much more quickly."
Cassandra and Teresa started training together, becoming close friends along the way. They attended workouts together three times a week for six years, she reveals in the book. Things changed once Teresa asked her if she could move in while trying to fix a personal crisis.
"There on the doorstep stood my trainer, "T" [Teresa], holding a trash bag full of her belongings, looking sad and bedraggled," Cassandra said, describing Teresa's arrival at her home, per HITC.
Cassandra and Mark Pierson, her husband of 22 years, parted ways in the early 2000s. Their divorce was finalized on Feb. 14, 2003. Cassandra soon learned that Teresa was good with kids — and she was particularly good with her and Mark's only daughter, Sadie.
Things changed for the good on a seemingly average night when Cassandra got back home after watching a movie.
"After coming home from a movie, I told her goodnight and suddenly felt compelled to kiss her — on the mouth," she writes. "As shocked as she was, I think I was even more surprised."
Teresa, later on, became Cassandra's personal assistant, per Daily Mail.
"For the first time in my life, I'm with someone who makes me feel safe, blessed, and truly loved," Cassandra writes in her memoir.