Clay Aiken reflects on the challenges he faced after coming out as gay in 2008, revealing that he lost about half of his fanbase.
The singer, who rose to fame as the runner-up on American Idol in 2003, publicly acknowledged his sexuality in a People cover story. In a new interview, Aiken discussed the significant impact his decision had on his career at the time.
“Back then, it was a huge deal,” he recalled, noting how much society has changed over the past 16 years. “It was a very different time.”
Aiken estimated that he lost about 50 percent of his fans after his announcement. At the time, he was starring in Spamalot on Broadway, and he noticed a direct drop in ticket sales after the news broke.
“The first few months I was in Spamalot, the show was selling out, with standing room only,” Aiken said. “But you can see the change in ticket sales after the cover story came out. They dropped dramatically. A few months later, Spamalot ended up closing.”
At the time, Aiken was 29 and had just become a father. He explained that coming out was one of the first decisions he made as a parent.
“It was the first decision I made as a father,” he shared. “I couldn’t raise a child to lie or hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I wasn’t going to raise my child to do that either.”
Looking back, Aiken stands by his decision to come out, expressing no regrets. He acknowledged that nowadays, many people who come out often experience a surge in popularity, which was not the case for him. However, he sees this as a positive sign of progress.
“It’s mind-blowing to me that people today can come out and gain popularity, whereas that didn’t happen when I did,” Aiken said. “But it shows that we’re moving in the right direction as a country.”
After stepping away from music for over a decade and running for Congress twice, Aiken recently returned to the music scene with a holiday album titled Christmas Bells Are Ringing.
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