And we love him for it.

by Shannonn Kelly
June 09, 2009

Adam "Glambert" Lambert

Really, it’s none of our business one way or the other. But to those red-states, he’s gotta say something.

So, American Idol runner up Adam Lambert did. He opens up in the next issue of Rolling Stone, speaking frankly about his sexuality, though he doesn’t think his revelation is particularly shocking.

What would be more shocking is if a boy liking girl or a girl liking boy made it public they were hetrosexual. We’d only be shocked by the announcment because we wouldn’t be able to figure out what the big deal was. And I guess that’s how we feel here. We don’t care if Adam Lambert is gay, straight, pink or walks on his hands. But, the world does.

“I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I’m gay,” Lambert says in the new issue of Rolling Stone, hitting newsstands this week.

The flamboyant “Idol” runner-up hits Rolling Stone’s cover and bares all, talking about his childhood (”I started to realize I wasn’t like every other boy,” he says), the drug-fueled Burning Man epiphany that led him to “AI” (”I realized that we all have our own  power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen,” he tells RS) and his run on the show (”I was like, ‘I’m going to glue rhinestones on my eyelids, bitch!”). And yes, he talks about his sexuality. “Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, ‘I’m going to wait for  Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,’” he tells the magazine. “I didn’t want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bullsh–t. I need to be able to explain myself in context.
“I’m proud of my sexuality,” Lambert adds. “I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” Ultimately, however Lambert tells RS contributor Vanessa Grigoriadis that there are other parts of his life that he’s trying to keep front and center. “I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader,” he says.

It was that mission — and his Burning Man “psychedelic experience” — that lead him to “Idol” after years in musical theater. “I knew that it was my only shot to be taken seriously in the recording industry, because it’s fast and broad,” he tells RS. (See photos of Lambert’s remarkable “American Idol” run here.)

He details his experience on “Idol,” his true thoughts on winner Kris Allen and how his sexuality impacted his  “Idol” run in the magazine’s cover story, “Wild Idol: The psychedelic transformation and sexual liberation of Adam Lambert,” which hits newsstands this week.

A few quotes from Adam’s long-awaited interview:

On “American Idol” groupies:

“I loved it this season when girls went crazy for me,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s all hot. Just because I’m not sticking it in there doesn’t mean that I don’t find it beautiful.”

On rooming with “American Idol” winner, Kris Allen:

“I was like, ‘Oh, s—, they put me with the cute guy,’ he says. ‘Distracting! He’s the one guy that I found attractive in the whole group on the show: nice,  nonchalant, pretty and totally my type — except that he has a wife. I mean, he’s open-minded and liberal, but he’s definitely 100 percent straight.”

On his drag photos that hit the Internet:

“I’ve only dressed in drag three or four times — and of course I took pictures, because I looked amazing — but I don’t tuck and I don’t wear breasts, that’s not me,” he says. “Sucking my boy’s face? Yes, that I will own.”

On coming out to his mother:

“On the way home, his mom asked, ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ I said, ‘No.’ She was like, ‘Well, do you want one?’ I said, ‘Yes, that would be nice.’ He laughs. Suddenly, it was like a wall dropped, and we started gabbing like crazy.”

On finding himself:

“I’m finally checked in to my self-worth for the first  time in my life, and the fact that it has coincided with ‘Idol’ is so sweet,” he says. “I mean, I still have moments where I think, Oh, my skin is terrible, and I’m a little fat, I should really go to the gym more. But for the most part, when I look in the mirror now, I finally see somebody who can do something cool.”