‘It’s fun to look at this through a UK lens’
◆ In a new ITV documentary Adam Lambert will explore queer musicians and the history of LGBT rights in the UK, writes Charlotte Mclaughlin
Often considered a queer icon by the LGBT+ community, it is unclear how Freddie Mercury viewed his own sexuality.
The flamboyant frontman, known for his theatrical style, including dressing as a leather skirt-clad woman for the music video for Queen’s I Want To Break Free, lived at a time when attitudes towards people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual were generally considered negative.
Mercury was born in 1946 in Tanzania as Farrokh Bulsara and moved to Feltham, south-west London in 1964 just prior to the Sexual Offences Act 1967 legalising homosexual acts in England and Wales. He died in 1991 at the age of 45 due to complications relating to Aids.
In a new ITV documentary, Adam Lambert: Out, Loud And Proud, singer Lambert explores decades of pop culture in the UK “in regards to queer representation” along with delving into the life of the Queen singer and other acts.
The 42-year-old says the “queer community deserves the spotlight all year round”, but more so during the UK’S Pride Month in June as they have been “vilified and prosecuted just for being who we are since the dawn of time”.
Lambert, who came out publicly as gay shortly after he was named runner-up on American Idol in 2009, says: “The biggest challenge we face is homophobia and it is rooted in ignorance.
“Meaning it’s what people don’t know that makes them reject and hate the community.”
He adds that there are still “setbacks” but “if you compare where we’re at now to where we were at in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s, you realise things have gotten better.”
Lambert has lent his vocals to Queen’s recent tours and describes himself as “an adopted stepchild of the UK” after spending a lot of time in London, and he speaks to the group’s guitarist Sir Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor in the new programme about their own thoughts on Mercury’s sexuality.
Mercury did not give a name to how he saw himself during his short life but has been described as bisexual, and was in a relationship with hairdresser Jim Hutton, who he left £500,000 in his will. The frontman gave the bulk of his estate to his former girlfriend Mary Austin including his Kensington mansion.
Lambert says: “It was really nice to have that safe space and I’m really honoured they felt comfortable with me and open to talk about their experience with Freddie and his experience as a queer man in a time where it was a taboo thing to talk about publicly.
“I really love that they trusted me with that conversation.
“I’m really honoured that they wanted to chat with me about it.”
Lambert wants to pay tribute to the resilience of LGBT+ artists and believes the “UK in many ways is almost a little ahead of the US in terms of acceptance and visibility”.
He adds: “For me, being an artist that came from a TV competition show and then coming out, I was the first one to do it on American Idol – but the UK had Will Young maybe 10 years prior, so we’re offset by like a decade.
“It’s fun for me to look at this through a UK lens, if I think about iconic queer musicians the first ones that come to mind are almost all UK artists – (Sir) Elton (John), Freddie, (David) Bowie, Boy George – these are queer men for example, but it all started from British artists so for me coming up and realising my dream of wanting to be an artist on stage – a singer outside of musical theatre – those were my touchstones and that felt like a really exciting place to dig into.”
Lambert also interviews Andy Bell of 80s pop duo
Erasure, the first black British headliner of Glastonbury; Skin, real name Deborah Dyer; and Grammy nominee and London-born singer MNEK.
He says Bell and Skin, the frontwoman of rock band Skunk Anansie, “represent respectively two different decades”.
For Lambert, lead vocalist Bell faced the “very tricky time” of the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic while being “super camp” and also “such a ray of light for the community”.
He sees Skin as a “trailblazer” who had to be a “woman of colour in a genre where it wasn’t associated with people of colour”, and believes that the UK continues to be at the forefront, citing MNEK, Olly Alexander and Sam Smith as “great examples”.
Towards the end of the documentary, he focuses on American actress and singer Michaela Jae Rodriguez, the first trans woman to win a Golden Globe for her role in Pose as Blanca Rodriguezevangelista, and takes a look at the gender debate.
Lambert says: “I think we are moving forward and there’s a lot of progress that has been made.
“It’s never a straight line and the pendulum swings back and forth. You can see that particularly with the trans community right now.
“There are laws being passed and conversations and voices that are being given the spotlight that are voices of hate and negativity.
“The only way we can combat that is by shining brighter and brighter and being proud of who we are. That’s how we move forward,” says Lambert.
"I think that’s why this show is so timely.”
I think we are moving forward. A lot of progress has been made
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