Andy DehnartAdam Lambert is part of Out magazine’s Out 100 for 2009, and in an interview, he addresses what he thought when photos of him making out with guys appeared online in the middle of his time on American Idol 8. He’s covered some of this ground before, but talks about it in greater detail here, and is, as always, remarkably honest.
“When those pictures came out online, I got freaked out. I was like, ‘Great, that’s gonna fuck things up. ‘Cause I just figured, you know, this is a national television program and people are conservative in our country, aside from L.A. and New York and a couple of other places,” Adam said in the interview, part of which is now online. “I didn’t want to acknowledge it as a mistake or something I was ashamed of–I’m not. It’s part of who I am, but because our nation is the way it is, it’s an announcement. If I lose some fans, fuck it. I need to be happy too.”
In the interview, Adam extensively details his conversations with Fox publicist Jill Hudson about what to do regarding the pictures (he says “she was really cool”) and talks about his strategy, which involved “going into slightly chameleon-like situations where this week, I’m going to do more like this, and sound like this,” such as “I’m not going to wear any makeup, and I’m going to do my cleaned-up classic retro look. And people were like, ‘Wow!'”
He also discusses related subjects, from going down on a woman to being defined by sexual orientation (“One of the things that I don’t like about the gay community is that people define themselves by their sexuality — and that’s bullshit”) and sexuality in general (“To some people, me being sexual is really offensive because I’m gay. They’re like, ‘He’s being really gay.’ And I’m like, actually, ‘No, I’m just being sexual.’ Male sexuality is frightening to America [but] female sexuality is all over the place”).