The Years & Years singer is the target of homophobic messages on social media and he decided to avoid these platforms.
“I get trolled,” he said. “The usual stuff – sometimes it’s homophobic, like gay hate.
“But I don’t understand why people ‘@’ me on Twitter to say ‘Olly Alexander can’t sing’ or ‘Olly Alexander, you’re ugly as f**k’.
“If we’ve been on TV I don’t go on Twitter for a while after,” he added.
But the commentaries about his artistic abilities are not the only negative messages he gets. The out singer receives rape jokes, and that is too much.
“I get some people who are really gross and make rape jokes about me.”
“It’s f**ked up. That’s why I can’t read too much anymore because I don’t need to be seeing that shit.”
The out musician, 25, has been through a rough time even since childhood, and as a teenager he started experiencing depression and anxiety.
Talking about his childhood he said: “I was quite troubled at school, I was bullied. For whatever reason, like family life and my parents divorcing around that time, I had a messy childhood.”
And that lead to depression and anxiety: “Being a teenager is f***ing horrible for a lot of people, anyway… depression and anxiety on top of that becomes a very layered, complicated thing.”
Now, Olly is a voice for the LGBT community ,and he is also involved in mental health campaigns. Despite the hate coming towards him on social media, he keeps on advocating for mental health and the LGBT community.
“There was just this stage where I realized that people were listening to what I was saying and I could actually say something I believe in and, like – why wasn’t I doing that?” he revealed.
“It’s not because I think I have a responsibility as a pop-star or whatever; it’s because I think I have a responsibility as a human being.
“I care more about that than trying to maintain a distance or keep any kind of mystique going as an artist.”
