Search form

Scroll To Top
Music

Adam Lambert Says Other Gay People in Music Think He's 'Too Gay'

Adam Lambert opens up about homophobia in music industry.

“It’s gotten better but I can’t make a blanket statement that it doesn’t happen anymore.”

The music landscape looks a lot different than it did a decade ago, especially for LGBTQ+ artists. Adam Lambert knows this well.

The singer -- whose fourth solo album, Velvet, will be released in September -- opened up about the changes he's observed over the past 10 years of his career in a new interview with Variety.

Speaking to James Patrick Herman, Lambert says that the recording industry is a "totally different landscape" for LGBTQ+ artists. Still, he says, he regularly encounters homophobia -- sometimes from other queer people.

"It's gotten better but I can't make a blanket statement that it doesn't happen anymore," he said. "There are always going to be shades of homophobia -- sometimes internalized homophobia that I've encountered from other gay people in the industry. They might feel that [I am] 'too gay.'"

Lambert had been out of the closet well before he made his star turn on American Idol's 8th season, losing the 2009 title to Kris Allen. But he only publicly confirmed that he's gay in a Rolling Stone cover story published shortly after the Idol finale -- something that was kind of a big deal for an industry-backed pop star like him to do at the time, believe it or not.

"There is much more visibility so it doesn't feel like a foreign or scary concept," Lambert continued. "When I first came on the scene almost everybody that I encountered in the music business was very supportive of me personally, but they were all a bit nervous about how it could work publicly. Now it's been proven that there is a market and an audience. It's allowing a lot more diversity to be pushed through."

Read the full interview here.

RELATED | Glamberts Rejoice, an Adam Lambert and Queen Documentary Is on Its Way

Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

From our Sponsors

Most Popular

Latest Stories

Harron Walker