Shay Mitchell: 'I'm never going to label' my sexuality

LOS ANGELES, May 6 (UPI) -- Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell refuses to label her sexuality.

The 29-year-old actress explained why she will "never" define herself as simply gay or straight in the the June issue of Cosmopolitan. Mitchell plays a lesbian character, Emily Fields, on the Freeform series.

"When I started, people were like, 'What are you?' Mitchell recalled. "I'm like, right now I'm dating a guy. I don't know what it's going to be in three years."

"You love who you love," she explained. "Black, white, polka dot, that's what my dad always said. I'm never going to label myself. I could be 50 and dating a woman and then what? I said I was straight and now I'm not?"

Mitchell previously revealed in the April 2015 issue of Teen Vogue she "always" gets asked if she is gay like Emily. She praised the show's portrayal of the LGBT character, saying the series doesn't rely on stereotypes.

"The casting director told me Emily was gay and asked if I was cool with that, but I didn't have to think twice," the star recalled. "If you look at the poster, you wouldn't necessarily be able to pinpoint which one of us is the lesbian, and that was really important to me."

"I don't feel like I need to answer, because honestly, it doesn't matter," she said of her own sexuality. "And it means so much to me when someone says, 'Thank you for playing this role' ... to have a small impact on their life in a positive way."

Pretty Little Liars will return for a seventh and final season June 21. Mitchell most recently appeared with Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson in Mother's Day, which opened in theaters April 29.