CHAPTER SIX
I recall, back in 2002, walking down Portobello Road, where there was an enormous poster for my first single, ‘Evergreen’. It was common for record companies then to put up a poster near the pop star’s home. As I walked past the poster, some builders on a site pointed up at the poster and called out to me.
‘Way-hey, Will! Go on, my son! You’re a handsome bastard, aren’t you? If I was gay, I’d have a go!’
I mean, it was just amazing. As so often throughout my life, the type of person I had thought would be the most terrifying was actually the most surprising. The obvious lad, for example; the builder. I have found that these guys often have the biggest hearts, and don’t give a shit about what you do or who you are; they just like people who are nice and down to earth. Still, as a gay man, and being a publicly gay man, I found myself putting people into categories based on whether I thought I would be safe or not. I became my own walking Mori poll for homophobia. I was, however, time and again, beautifully surprised by people from different ages, genders, religions or ethnic backgrounds. It was a constant source of joy and still is.
It saddens me that I found myself placing people into boxes and making assessments. I would call them ‘risk assessments’ rather than judgements, as I wasn’t looking to make moral assessments on people. It was more about whether I could get away with being publicly gay around these people. How young were they? What class? What culture? Were they posh? Were they businessmen? Having this radar was imperative. Ask most gay or queer people, and they will tell you that they have a radar, which is constantly on, scanning for danger. Being famous meant I had a double-radar, because I was always subconsciously looking around to see where a phone might be shoved in my face, or a piece of paper and a pen, or rush of ten people. This was my life. It was neither good nor bad; it just was what it was. Sometimes, my assessments about people were wrong, and I was happy to be proved wrong; yet often they were right, and I was desperately sad and hurt.
Having gone to public school, I’d spent a lot of my late teens in Chelsea with all the other rich privileged public-school boys from Eton and Harrow and Radley. It was a stomping ground I was familiar with, and I felt a certain affinity with many of the posh people who lived there. However, when I was walking by the Bluebird restaurant one day, someone driving by shouted at me in a posh voice:
‘Bumboy!’
I immediately felt exposed, ashamed and embarrassed. It’s strange; the silence that occurs after an insult has been hurled can be a silence that creates a sort of complicity. No one says anything; people walk on, and the words hang in the air, filling the space as if they’d been shouted by the whole street instead of just one person.
The street takes on the cry: ‘You’re a bumboy! You’re not welcome here.’
I was devastated. I felt like even the area I was most familiar with in London had let me down. Somebody who I might have even played at rugby had abused me, and I felt disgusting; almost as if in exile. The public nature of it was even more humiliating and terrifying, but didn’t stop there.
In South Kensington, not far from the King’s Road, I went into a sandwich shop where I had been going for around four years. I was playing at Wembley that night with the other nine finalists from Pop Idol, and I wanted to grab a panini to go. I got my driver, in his blacked-out Mercedes, to stop outside the café (one other thing I’d learnt very quickly was that the blacked-out Mercedes was one of the few places I actually felt safe and not stared at) and walked into the busy café to queue for my panini. While I was waiting, a girl of around 17 came up to me and shoved her phone into my face, demanding I spoke to her mother. I very politely declined but sent my best to her mum. Once I’d got my lunch, I turned to walk out, but as I passed the girl she said, ‘Is it because I’m a girl that you wouldn’t speak to my mum, Will?’
She said it loud enough for the whole café to hear, and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t comprehend someone that age would be so hurtful, unpleasant and outwardly homophobic. I couldn’t even believe that a young girl would actually think like that. I am, however, proud of what I did next.
I turned at the door and said loudly, ‘No! It’s because you’re FUCKING RUDE!’
Everyone stared at the girl and I walked out rather pleased with my reply. I was also shaken and deeply angry. It wasn’t to stop there though. I was off to Wembley to do the final day of the Pop Idol tour, which was being filmed. It was the first show since I had publicly come out. The support of everyone in the Pop Idol camp was palpable. All the other contestants were wonderful and we were like a family.
The first half of the show was fun and went really well. Midway through the second half, there was a moment each night when some of us would gather around a sofa under the stage, which was then lifted up into the middle of the stage. As we walked up to take our places around the sofa that night, I noticed that someone had written FAGGOTS in chalk on the wall. It wasn’t just me who was gay either; there was another young guy called Korben. He looked crestfallen, and I was devastated for him, feeling extremely protective. I was furious and, in front of the whole crew and the tour manager, loudly demanded a towel and some water. The tour manager tried to stop me from doing it, but I brushed him gently aside and doused the towel in water, washing the foul word off the wall.
I looked around. I didn’t know who’d written it. Our tour manager, Bill, a tough Scottish man, was furious that anyone would dare write something like that on his watch, and I certainly wouldn’t have fucked with him! I got the words off just in time, before we all rose up together to face our audience for the upcoming number, feeling strong and united. We never did find out who’d written it.
Things like this continued to happen, and somehow, I managed to remain resolute. I’m not sure where I got the courage or countenance to be so tough, because in other ways I was completely broken and had very low self-esteem. I think perhaps from my upbringing, and from doing politics at university, I managed to have a strong sense of not being bullied. I have always detested bullies and bullying was something I wouldn’t stand for. Looking back, though, it can be scary. I’ve had people threatening to stab me and I once had someone shouting ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’ at me from a Vauxhall Nova outside a pub in Hampstead. Although on that occasion, I just shouted ‘faggot’ back at them, so they just got confused and drove off looking rather dejected. Someone also once rang my hotel room late at night to homophobically abuse me. At the same time, I constantly came across people who would surprise me with their warmth and open-mindedness.
Around the same time as the Stephen Gately article came out around his death, a DJ on the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show, Chris Moyles, decided to embark on a rampage of homophobia against me – on my birthday no less. It was something that left me aghast, especially as he and I were on friendly terms. My manager at the time, Caroline, heard it, and was truly angered. She could not believe the language that was being used against one of her clients. I have never heard the show or read the transcript until now, but I managed to find it through Gerrard, who has supplied me with not only the audio and transcript of the show, but also the replies from the BBC, who weren’t exactly falling over themselves to apologise.
It’s important now that I make clear I am not using this as an example purely to relive some personal gripe against Chris Moyles, the BBC, or Radio 1. That said, I did feel that, back then, Radio 1 was a bit of a hotbed for anti-gay sentiment, despite them having a gay DJ, Scott Mills. Scott was never, to my knowledge, vocal about his sexuality on air at that time, but I have always been a supporter and fan, and interviewed him for an edition of Attitude when I was guest editor.
I’m sure the audio version of the piece has a blatant feel, due to the words being used. The written word also has a toxicity and can cut deep; however, there is something flagrant about live spoken words. They cannot so readily be changed, or explained away as being taken ‘out of context’. Chris Moyles presented the Breakfast Show, probably attracting the most listeners at that time of day across the whole of the UK, so the homophobia against me was beamed through people’s radios in their cars, their homes, their workplaces, and to their ears, as they got ready for, or travelled to, work, school, or college. Here, my sexuality was something to be mocked and laughed at, which is without question encouraging homophobia.
Announcing my birthday, he put on a silly, overly camp voice, spouting things like, ‘Hello, Will Young here. Ooh! Look at the muck in here’. And ‘It’s my birthday, gonna wear a new dress tonight. And I smell nice. I’ve had a shower and shaved my legs. Going out later, might go to Nob-ooh for my dinner’. And ‘I like to wear a silly hat; I get camper by the hour. I’m Will Young and I’m gay. Did you know I was gay? I hid it for a while. But now I’m out, I’m outer than you would believe’.
What Chris Moyles did that morning on BBC Radio 1 was reinforce the idea of gay men as laughable creatures, who are oddities and camp, prancing about in dresses, wearing make-up – effectively, anything other than the stereotypical macho normal man. This idea of gay men being somehow fodder for jokes is not something that has slipped away, unfortunately. As recent as 2019, the TV car show, The Grand Tour, had Jeremy Clarkson in what was described as a ‘hairdresser’s car’. He laughably wore a pink shirt, and played ‘It’s Raining Men’ in the car, while the other presenter, Richard Hammond, spoke of wearing arseless chaps. Absolutely hysterical! Of course, I’m sure Jeremy ‘isn’t homophobic in the slightest’ and I would imagine has ‘loads of gay friends’.
It wasn’t just the presenters who were at fault either. It was, most notably, the show’s producers, who decided to lead with this stereotyped gay theme as one of the stories for the show. They chose it, they formatted and initiated it, and yet I’m sure they don’t consider themselves homophobic, merely funny. Also, let us not forget the complicity of Amazon in allowing this show to air, even though I’m sure they see themselves as a very forward-thinking diverse company and have a very good internal ‘LGBT’ network. Let’s imagine that ethnic minorities were being stereotyped and made fun of on this show. I don’t even want to consider that would be the case, and neither, I’m sure, would Chris Moyles or the producers of The Grand Tour. Yet, for some reason, gay people were, and unfortunately still sometimes are, fair game.
This goes wider than radio and TV. Films, over the years, especially laddish films like The Hangover, would have actors making fun of two men being gay. The idea that one of the straight men has become gay is made to seem like total hilarity. Actor and writer Seth Rogen has consistently perpetuated homophobia through his movies, and has recently apologised for doing so. But why did he and others not see at the time how offensive these parodies and jokes were? After all, it wasn’t all that long ago. The key thing in all of these cases is that there are gay people watching these films in the cinema, while others around them are laughing. It’s the same with radio and TV. These stereotypes compound the shame and self-hatred that gay people can often feel, and the examples I’ve given show just how little corporations, producers, presenters and actors have, in the past, cared about the effect their ‘creative’ decisions have on others.
The Chris Moyles debacle is interesting because it was happening under the umbrella of the BBC, a body governed by central government and paid for by the taxpayers. They, if anyone, should be expected to have been more responsible and responsive to diversity, and serving all the people who paid their licence fee, not just some of them.
At the time of broadcast, the BBC were resistant about providing a transcript of the show and the language that occurred on it. One could not imagine it happening these days, and to me, it shows how there was an ability to hit back against issues being raised such as homophobia at that time. What is also notable was the lack of complaints at the time. Perhaps Chris was preaching to the choir, or perhaps the fact it was meant to be humorous meant that people didn’t really think there was anything wrong with what he said. For me, it demonstrates how low on the agenda the idea of gay rights and equality was. The action taken by the broadcaster was minimal. Thankfully, though, things were starting to change.
With civil partnerships and the emergence of equal rights for the LGBT+ community, the teaching of issues like gay rights, equality and lifestyles was seen in many more schools and colleges. LGBTQ+ pop stars, actors and sportspeople began to become more prominent. It stopped being such a scoop that someone was anything other than heterosexual. The prevention of the use of the word ‘gay’ as a derogatory term in broadcasting was upheld, and people were called out on their bigotry and prejudices more and more. TV shows and films became more diverse, and more and more LGBT+ stories appeared in mainstream broadcasting. Visibility was bigger, better and more prominent. Mental health amongst the LGBT+ community was addressed more, and transgender rights were brought to the fore. The notion of what it was, and is, to be queer has arisen in the last few years to greater prominence. Gender norms and identity are discussed frequently, with a movement that is continuing to grow. It is an inescapable and undeniable force of evolution; a wave that has continued to roll along. Sometimes, these waves gently break on sand, and other times they smash into rocks of resistance. The path of improvement is never straight and simple, but the determination is undeniable. Legal structuring is now in place, so as LGBTQ+ citizens of the UK, we are protected by a framework and precedents, which have been formed to help us fight prejudice, and keep us from harm by those who perpetuate that prejudice. It’s fair to say that a sea change has occurred in the past few years, not only in wider society … but also in myself.
Over the years, I’ve heard straight men who enjoy my music say things like, ‘I like your music, I mean, I’m not gay, and the boys in the office make fun of me.’
Or a straight woman might say, ‘My husband likes your music; sometimes I think he must be gay.’
Neither of these sentences make me feel particularly fantastic about myself. I think because I was not so much the norm in terms of being a pop star who was open from the start about who he’d fall in love with, it presented men with a definite dichotomy. If you like Will Young then you must be gay or at least a bit odd. For a long time, this would reinforce the gay shame I held inside and I would find myself agreeing with these comments. It was an example of how we are all stereotyped and put into boxes, and I think the people who can suffer the most are straight men. In fact, as I’ve said before, the people who are exposed to the most homophobia are straight men: constantly ribbed about being gay in the locker room, the workplace or in their own home.
It seems that the kind of pop star you like is used as an indicator of the kind of identity you must have, but stereotyping doesn’t stop there. It can be anything: the car you drive; where you live; the clothes you wear. It’s all an illusion created by society to keep us in our separate places. Once we realise that we can do and be whoever we want, the world is the most liberating place. If I want to, I can wear a skirt and still be masculine. If we want to, we can listen to Radio 4 and still be the coolest, hippest person on the planet! We are controlled by the limitations that are put on us from the very beginning of our lives. Wear the colour blue if you are a boy, pink if you’re a girl. I even heard on a radio breakfast show yesterday that the man doing the travel was expecting a baby. The presenter asked if he knew the sex yet, and the man said he didn’t, so the presenter replied, ‘Well, only gender-neutral colours for now then.’
This implied and reinforced that there are colours that aren’t gender-neutral, and I was surprised to hear the presenter say these words. If I was having a child and someone bought me a pink Babygro – for the child, of course! – I wouldn’t care if I then had a boy or a girl. The baby wouldn’t give a shit, I can assure you. This is an example of us actually putting our hang-ups and limitations directly onto our children – starting at the infant stage, for God’s sake! In fact, as the radio show highlighted, it starts before the bloody child is even born, so what hope have they got?
We have to work on our stuff and free ourselves from these rules that have been created and passed down but that mean absolutely nothing, only serving to limit our true power and ability to be whoever we want to be; not what others expect us to be.
I know this now, but I’m sad to admit that once I was ‘publicly gay’, post-Pop Idol, I found myself shying away from the areas of life where I felt I didn’t belong. I stopped going to watch rugby matches. I noticed that when I did go, as an out gay man, I felt extremely vulnerable and self-conscious. I had a dialogue constantly running in my head. I felt I could no longer ‘masquerade’ as a straight man going to watch a rugby international at Twickenham; instead, I felt open to ridicule and public disgust. Bear in mind, this was back in 2002 when LGBTQ+ people were still considered fair game. There was no embracing of the LGBTQ+ community. They were still very much seen as misfits who were tolerated. But it was just that – tolerance, not acceptance.
The truth is, even now, as a gay man, I have to think about where I feel I belong, and where I might feel unwelcome or even unsafe. Not long ago, my brother Rupert and I were on our way to a gig when we saw a couple – two men – holding hands. Both of us remarked, not only how lovely it was, but how brave. It made me remember how scary it had been for me, holding hands in public with a partner for the first time. A few things came to mind. Firstly, if I see a heterosexual couple holding hands, I don’t think, ‘Oh, they’re heterosexual!’ It doesn’t enter my head. Whereas, with two people of the same sex, the notion of their sexuality is there, and it registers as something good, and, yes, something brave. Holding hands in public is such an open, gentle and physical declaration of being in love, but for gay people there is always going to be a safety aspect. If I’m holding hands with a man in view of everyone I happen to walk past, I can’t control how each person will be affected by that.
I was wandering through the East End about fourteen years ago, holding hands with my then boyfriend, Julian, and we had people shouting at us. Someone actually threatened to stab us. We ended up taking shelter in Les Trois Garçons, which is a restaurant owned and run by a trio of gay men. Further back than that, my first boyfriend, Jude, and I were holding hands as he walked me to the BBC in White City one day. As we approached a group of teenagers on the street, we both consciously let go of one another; it was instinctual. The memory of those occasions makes me feel sad and reminds me that even now, in certain situations, I have to be on alert. We all have to be on alert, because we might not be safe. We might get attacked or beaten up. It’s happening even now, as in the case of the lesbian couple who were attacked and left battered and bloody on a bus in Camden Town, in 2019.
The sad truth is, some people are still offended, incensed or indeed disgusted by the sight of same-sex couples displaying affection in public, and it’s something most gay people take for granted and learn to live with. I was on my way home in a cab once, having been set up on a date with a guy who, I’d been told by several people, was an exceptional kisser. In the back seat of the taxi from Soho, I happily discovered that everything I’d been told was true. Yes, he was a fantastic kisser, and I made a mental note to call the friend who’d set us up the next day, to report my findings. Now, I say we were kissing in the back seat and that’s what I mean. We weren’t having sex or anything approaching it; it was a snog. Still, the taxi driver stopped his cab and kicked us out on Oxford Street, telling us we were disgusting. I didn’t choose to fight it. Perhaps I could have, but what would have been the point? Yes, we were upset about it, but in some ways, we just accepted it. I kissed someone in the street on a recent date, but even then, I was conscious of the risks, and, although the thought may have been fleeting, it was there.
Travelling can also be a minefield. In some places I’ve visited, men are advised not to hold hands, which immediately puts one on edge. It’s something gay men and women always have to consider. For instance, I probably wouldn’t think twice about holding a partner’s hand around the pool at the Four Seasons in LA, but in the majority of hotels I’ve been to, that wouldn’t be the case. Who would look twice at a heterosexual couple having a quick snog in the pool? Two men, on the other hand …
In a London hotel, my boyfriend Jesse and I were messing about in a giant Jacuzzi – more of a pool really – with me holding him in the water like a baby learning to swim. I don’t think we even kissed and we certainly weren’t snogging, because I don’t think that appropriate in a hotel Jacuzzi, whoever the hell you are. I remember this big Russian guy watching us, and it was clear that he didn’t like what he saw. Not long after, the manager of the hotel arrived to say that there had been a complaint about us, and could we stop what we were doing.
I lost my shit.
‘You would not be coming down here if we were a straight couple,’ I told him. ‘This is blatant homophobia, and you’ve made the wrong decision.’
Not only were we doing something completely innocent, but this hotel was in the centre of London, a stone’s throw away from Trafalgar Square, where Gay Pride was happening on that very day.
It’s sad that as a 41-year-old man, I still feel I have to consider so many things before taking a simple action. I have to analyse the people around me, then decide if I still want to take the action, and whether it’s safe to do so, and then consider whether I’m even within my rights to do it. All this within a few seconds.
It makes it hard to live authentically because one is sometimes – whether it be consciously or unconsciously – pandering to someone else’s standards of acceptability. It means that same-sex couples often have to look for safe spaces to be themselves. So however out and proud we might be, it’s not exactly true and authentic living.
Happily, things have got better in many places, and people are more and more accepting, but for me, that consciousness around safety is something that will always be there. It’s a way of living that I know will never change for me. I just have to work at it, and decide, on a day-to-day basis, how brave I want to be.
I’ve sometimes discovered bravery and visibility in the strangest of places. When I bought my house in Cornwall, which is in the middle of nowhere, on Bodmin Moor, I was surprised to discover two gay men running the local pub. I thought, Wow! These are the people who are really on the front line. I’ve found a certain amount of safety, living in London, but things can sometimes be trickier for same-sex couples in more remote areas, because they tend to stand out more in smaller communities.
One night at the house, I was hosting a hen do for my friend, Claire, where we’d all dressed as different characters. Claire was dressed in a repulsive dress that I’d found for her, and I was dressed as a granny. On that same night, the local pub was holding some sort of anniversary celebration in a marquee on the moor. How brilliant, I thought. We can all go and join their party later on in the evening.
When we arrived at the marquee, a cry went up, ‘The ’ens are ’ere! The ’ens are ’ere!’ Clearly, they’d been expecting us. In fact, about ten years later, I was told that the hens’ arrival had been met with much approval from the local men.
‘Ooh, look at that one, she’s fit!’ the postman had said, seeing one girl. ‘And that one, she’s nice!’
On seeing me, he’d remarked, ‘I’m not sure about that one; she’s a bit of a boot!’
All in all, it turned out to be an interesting night. I ended up getting up on stage with a local band, while wearing a dress, and singing a song. Later, I got propositioned by a handsome young farmer.
‘Come on, Will!’ he said. ‘Let’s have a bit of a quick kiss!’
‘I can’t,’ I told him. ‘I have a boyfriend.’
As well as that, one of the regulars felt compelled to tell me that she’d found her son in the hayloft with another boy from the village. I remember thinking, what’s going on? Is there a pink cloud over Bodmin Moor I don’t know about?
It was a great evening, and a lovely example of me being as open as I wanted to be in an unexpected environment. And let’s face it, I’m an openly gay famous person, so I couldn’t have hidden my sexuality even if I’d wanted to. As it turned out, I was completely accepted in that small community, and I think the fact that two openly gay men ran the local pub was a massive help.
While I was outside chopping wood one day – my favourite pastime – I spotted a group of men walking along the footpath that went through the land around my house, so went to have a chat with them.
They turned out to be the Cornwall Gay Men’s Walking Group, which was quite a surprise to me. They were a wonderful group of guys, who were doing something other than clubbing – just walking. I loved the normality of it, and it struck me how important this kind of group is. This was how people found community, especially outside the big cities.
Thinking about country life, and being gay in a village, brings to mind The Archers – the longest-running radio drama, possibly in the world, I think.
It revolves around Ambridge, a made-up town in the countryside, somewhere, I think, in the Midlands, and is largely about the farming community. It runs twice a day from Monday to Friday, the lunchtime episode being a repeat of the evening before. On Sunday there is The Archers omnibus where you get a blissful 75 minutes of Ambridge’s latest sagas. Highlights include potato rot, the positive and negatives of herbal leys and my personal favourite, the village cake competition. I adore Lynda Snell; she’s snobby and a busybody, and likes to talk about Chaucer and use Latin. She is – again that elusive word – ‘camp’; I find it hard to put into words quite how she is camp, but she is!
My parents and I now have a WhatsApp group where we discuss what’s going on with The Archers. Kate is one of the characters who often gets it in the neck; she’s spoilt and really annoying, and my mother can be quite vitriolic about her. In fact, my mother is also on the Facebook page for The Archers and can sometimes get into quite heated conversations about various storylines.
There is a gay couple – Ian and Adam. Ian is a chef at the well-to-do restaurant and spa and Adam is a farmer. Adam and Ian are possibly the dullest gay couple I have ever come across in fiction or in real life. In fact, I think they are just the dullest couple full stop. Adam in particular is seriously pessimistic and has a way of speaking where every sentence has to end in a downward inflection. I would like to be clever and say that my dislike of them comes from some intrinsic gay shame in myself or inane jealousy of how this fictional couple are together, and yet I am single. I don’t think it is, though. I think they are just shit boring. They are however having a baby with Lexi, one of the Polish cleaners, as a surrogate, using one of their sperms; so although I jest, The Archers, which is probably marketed to an audience of age 60 years plus, is actually broaching modern-day topics and reaching across middle England in its own rural way.