Sporting a bleached-blond buzz cut, American actress Kristen Stewart hit the red carpet in New York to promote her new film "Personal Shopper", saying she hoped to help others by going public about her sexual orientation.

The 26-year-old, who use to date her co-star from the "Twilight" film series, Robert Pattinson, made headlines in February when she announced she was gay while hosting the U.S. late night sketch show "Saturday Night Live".

"I always wanted to keep what was mine in private, mine. And then I thought like you know, you open it up a little bit and you can help one or two people, it's absolutely worth it," she said on Thursday.

"Personal Shopper", directed by Olivier Assayas, tells the story of Maureen (Stewart), an American woman working in Paris, who is trying to connect with the spirit of her dead brother Lewis. The film has been described as a seductive, mysterious ghost-story, but Assayas said it was simply a coming of age tale.

"It's a character who is in a moment in her life where she has to somehow become herself because she's just lost her twin brother. So it's really like a character who is one half of herself and she will gradually rebuild her life and become someone," Assayas said.

The film, which also stars Nora Von Waldstatten and Sigrid Bouaziz, first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 and will be released in U.S. theatres today.