David Archuleta on people's reaction to his coming out: 'They think it's selfish'
When international singer David Archuleta came out as queer back in 2021, a lot of people showed support and he even gained new fans because of this. However, the former American Idol star admitted he lost a few people, and expressed how scared he was when it happened.
“It was scary to lose the people that have always been there from my conservative side, you know, I grew up very religious, very Mormon as a Latter-day Saint, and that was my audience, a lot of my fans who would come to my shows,” David said in his interview on the Updated with Nelson Canlas podcast.
David said that while many of his fans back then were still supportive of him, some of them were disappointed with his decision to come out because they didn't know what it meant.
“They think you're making a choice, they think it's selfish, and they don't understand that people who are queer, especially when they grew up in a conservative, religious background that is not supportive of that and not accepting, they do everything they can to try and not be queer,” David said.
He added, “It's like they think you're making this decision suddenly to be selfish. You know what, I've done everything I can to try to be straight. But they still don't understand that. A lot of them did, a lot of them learned, like my mom.”
TAKE A LOOK AT THE LOCAL CELEBRITIES WHO CONSIDER THEMSELVES ALLIES OF THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY IN THIS GALLERY:
David disclosed that initially, his mom didn't understand and believed that not accepting his queerness was the right thing to do.
The international singer expressed how the LGBTQIA+ community has been a great help not only for himself but for others to finally accept who they truly are.
“It's been amazing to be so well-received by the LGBTQIA+ community and to see that there are so many people who have gone through the same thing as me, who have helped, by them being themselves, made it easier for people like me to come out and to be myself,” David said.
He continued, “And I hope to just keep passing it along because we made so much progress. The work is not done, there's still pushback a lot of times with culture and society, with incorrect assumptions that are made about our community, and I just hope to prove them wrong, just to say 'You know what? There's not much difference between us.'”
Listen to David's full interview here:
