Jason Mraz Opens Up About 'Shame,' 'Guilt' Around Accepting Queer Identity

Six years after he first publicly came out, singer Jason Mraz is still working on fully accepting himself.

While talking with GLAAD, Mraz said that he still finds it difficult sometimes to fully accept his queer identity, but as he’s moving forward through life, he’s learning to do it more and more.

“I had to play out a lot of other scenarios before I arrived here. It’s both hard to do those and hard to unravel those, and what I’m basically describing is a divorce, you know?” he said. “And that’s very hard. You carry a lot of shame, guilt.”

“You want to heal as many relationships of the past as possible and at the same time, step into this new acceptance and new identity or whatever I’m claiming, and that’s also hard,” he said, adding that it felt good to be on this year’s Out100 list. “So being on the Out100 is… It’s nice to be acknowledged.”

He also said that his currently being on the 32nd season of Dancing With the Stars has helped him to examine his identity and self even more.

“All day you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, and that can be hard for anybody, any human, to accept themselves looking in the mirror,” he said about rehearsing for the show. “On top of it, then my partner is asking me to move in ways that I’ve never moved before, and my reaction is, ‘I look silly.’ And then you break through that and it’s like, ‘OK, I feel kinda cool.’ And then it eventually becomes confidence, and so it is a journey.”

“It happens to me all the time. And I have to figure out, like, accept myself, get back in my body, move through life in ways that I’m happy about, and so by the end of the day I feel accomplished and I feel happy to be me,” he continued. “Dance is an amazing medium for that transformation and for that accepting of ones’ self.”

Dancing With the Stars is currently airing Tuesdays on ABC.