American Idol’s Sanjaya Malakar Comes Out as Bisexual: ‘I Did Not Know’ I Was LGBTQ During Season 6

usmagazine.com:

Sharing his truth. Sanjaya Malakar‘s sexuality faced scrutiny when he was a teenager on American Idol, but he can proudly share that he’s bisexual more than a decade later.“I identify as bisexual,” the singer, 32, shared on the August 22 episode of “The Adam Sank Show” podcast from DNR Studios.Malakar, now 32, is a pastry chef and bartender.

However, when he was 17, he was on American Idol season 6 and still figuring out his identity. “At the time, I did not know, which was why it was so weird for me,” he said of speculation about his sexuality during his reality TV years.After ending his run on the singing competition in 7th place, he later placed fifth on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!

season 2, where he once again was asked about his sexuality.“I do hair and I’ll sit in the corner and knit, so it confuses people,” he said during a 2009 episode of the NBC series. “A lot of my friends refer to me as their ‘straight gay best friend’ because we’ll go do things that stereotypically you would do with a gay guy.”The Washington native explained on “The Adam Sank Show” that he truly wasn’t sure of his sexuality, and having people tell him he was gay as a child was not helpful.“I always got along with theater kids.

I always got along with gay kids and girls, so I was like, ‘OK, these are my people,'” he recalled. “But I don’t know. Everyone keeps telling me that I am gay, and I’m like, 7.