Adam Lambert: Out, Loud & Proud: Documentary sees Adam exploring the history of LGTBQ+ pop
Wednesday: Adam Lambert: Out, Loud & Proud (ITV1, 9pm)
Singer Adam Lambert first found fame on the talent show American Idol in 2009, before coming out in a Rolling Stone interview later that year.
As he’s the first to point out though, that’s a story that made sound familiar to British pop fans. Adam says: “It’s funny because I feel like the UK in many ways is almost a little ahead of the US in terms of acceptance and visibility.
“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.”
Perhaps that’s why this documentary, which finds Adam exploring the history of LGTBQ+ pop, has a distinctly British flavour. Adam says: “If I think about iconic queer musicians the first ones that come to mind are almost all UK artists – Elton [John], Freddie [Mercury], [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.”
Adam has certainly carried on the legacy of one of those artists. Since 2011, he has been touring with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, and in this documentary he talks to them about their former frontman.
Adam says: “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.”
He also chats to Erasure singer Andy Bell and Skunk Anansie’s frontwoman Skin about their experiences, and explores how they compare to his own.
As Adam points out, a lot has changed for LGBQT+ artists: “At one point coming out was this act of defiance – a rebellion – it was about owning who you were and fighting against oppression, I think that narrative has changed as well. A lot of what the young generation are saying is, ‘Well I don’t have to declare that I’m straight, so why do I declare that I’m gay?’
“It’s slowly becoming an afterthought, which is a beautiful progress. The community right now says everyone has a sexuality and a gender, there’s a whole range of what that looks like and there’s a place for all of those different identities. We are able now, because of all the work that’s been done by previous generations, to just be.”
However, that doesn’t mean the fight for equality has been won. Adam reflects on how far we’ve come but also how far we still have to go, as he sopeaks to actress and singer Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, the first trans woman to win a Golden Globe for her role in Pose, about the final frontier of LGBTQ+ rights.