Judas Priest Vocalist Talked About Coming Out As Gay
Rob Halford, mainly known for his work with Judas Priest talked about coming out as a gay during his interview. He connected to Apple Music‘s Hattie Collins to talk during Pride Month. He told the story and how he felt about being a gay musician in the late ’70s and about his announcement in 1998.
Robert John Arthur Halford is one of the most important names in the music industry since he started working in it. He has joined the American heavy metal band in 1969 and ever since he is on top of his work. Halford even has a nickname as “Metal God”. Besides his musical work, Halford also has a kind of inspirational thing in his personal life. The Judas Priest Vocalist is the first metal icon that came out as gay in 1998. He came out as gay in an MTV interview this year. He shared his experience about this as below:
“It was beautiful. It was very unplanned. It was one of those things where I’m at MTV in New York, I’m talking about a project that I was working on, and in the casual course of the conversation and I said something to the effect of, ‘Well, speaking as a gay man… blah blah blah blah blah.’ And then I heard the producer’s clipboard bounce on the floor. It was one of those gay sharp intakes of breath: ‘Oh my God! He’s come out.’ And so there I was. And I did the interview. And then I walked back to the hotel and went back to my room. And ‘Now everybody knows.’ And then, of course, it hit the newswires. And that was that.”
“And that was that.”
And of course, after this announcement, he did a lot of interviews and speeches about it. He even wrote an autobiography called “Confess” where Judas Priest vocalist Halford tells what he has gone through as a gay man in the metal world. He shared that his bandmates and managers from Judas Priest were aware and accepting this situation. He always mentioned that how the metal community is a whole together and they do not judge each other.
“I’m not unique in the issue of finding your own sexual identity, but certainly the way I’ve tried to balance that in my professional working life as a musician was tough; it was difficult,” he continued. “And we go into detail how I couldn’t go to clubs or bars for fear of recognition and that hitting the press, and blah blah blah, just because the world was a different place then. Of course, the long-term discovery, when I did come out, famously on MTV in the ’90s, when I was in the 2WO band with John 5, was that it was the most perfect example of the way the metal community is so accepting and inclusive and welcoming people from all over.
If you want to take a look at his story from his own perspective, the book we’ve mentioned earlier “Confess” is published in September. It was written by Ian Gittins and published by Hachette Books.