Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie, Jason Mraz and Tove Lo
It’s common knowledge that stars like Troye Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko and Janelle Monáe are out and proud.
Not only has their sexuality been dissected by the media, but they haven’t shied away from singing about same-sex romances throughout their catalog. But everyone’s relationship with their sexual orientation and gender identity is different.
Here are eight modern music stars who have opened up about their sexuality.
Originally signed to Columbia Records as a teenager, Geiger’s 2006 debut album, Underage Thinking, spawned two hit singles, “For You I Will (Confidence)” and “These Walls.” She has since come out as transgender (in October 2017) and has become a high-profile songwriter, scoring two Grammy nominations for her work with Shawn Mendes. She is currently engaged to actress Emily Hampshire.
The singer-songwriter revealed he wasn’t straight in an interview last year: “I’ve had experiences with men, even while I was dating the woman who became my wife.” Feeling conflicted, he talked about it with his wife since 2015, Christina Carano. “My wife laid it out for me. She calls it ‘two spirit,’ which is what the Native Americans call someone who can love both man and woman. I really like that.”
The former Disney brat revealed that she was open to dating both men and women in her 2017 YouTube documentary Simply Complicated. She later clarified in an interview with InStyle: “I’m very fluid. I think love is love. You can find it in any gender. I like the freedom of being able to flirt with whoever I want.”
The Filipino singer, formerly known as Charice, came out as a trans man in 2017. After performing on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2008, the star’s career took off, landing him a guest stint on Glee and high-profile duets with Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli.
The Pittsburgh-born singer gained attention after her Grammy-winning collaboration with The Chainsmokers became a global hit in 2016. The electro-pop singer initially came out during her headlining set at Milwaukee Pride in 2018. Later that year, on National Coming Out Day, the singer took to Instagram for a heartfelt note, stating: “I’m proud to be a bisexual member of the LGBTQ community with a girl I love who makes me feel more like me every day.”
The Green Day frontman first opened up about his sexuality in 1995, telling The Advocate, “I think I’ve always been bisexual. I mean, it’s something that I’ve always been interested in. I think people are born bisexual, and it’s just that our parents and society kind of veer us off into this feeling of ‘Oh, I can’t.’ They say it’s taboo. It’s ingrained in our heads that it’s bad when it’s not bad at all. It’s a very beautiful thing.” He later explained that “Come Clean,” from the band’s breakthrough album Dookie, was about questioning his sexuality and self-discovery.
After causing speculation with the bisexual anthem “Girls/Girls/Boys” and it’s super sexy music video in 2013, the Panic! At The Disco singer came out as pansexual in 2018. “I’m married to a woman and I’m very much in love with her but I’m not opposed to a man because to me, I like a person,” he explained to Paper magazine. “Yeah I guess you could qualify me as pansexual because I really don’t care.”
The bisexual Swede first broke through with her 2014 sleeper hit “Habits,” and has consistently delivered pure pop magic since. Known for her casual approach to sex positivity (“Did you go down on his birthday? / Did you let him leave a necklace?” she sings on her latest single, “Glad He’s Gone”), it’s no surprise that she’s the product of a liberal upbringing.
“I never came out to my parents or my friends. I just kinda did what I wanted with whomever I wanted,” she said in a letter to the LGBTQ community.
