Yahoo Lifestyle Clay Aiken Reflects On Losing '50 Percent' Of His Fans After Coming Out In 2008
As he returns to music after a 12-year hiatus, Clay Aiken is looking back on his path to living as his true self.
A North Carolina native, Aiken rose to prominence on the second season of “American Idol” in 2003. Though he finished in second place behind Ruben Studdard, he nonetheless won widespread acclaim for his debut album, “Measure of a Man,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
Speaking to People in an interview published last week, however, Aiken recalled how that initial flush of success came to an abrupt halt when he came out as gay. He publicly addressed his sexuality in a People cover story published about a month after welcoming his son, Parker, in 2008.
“Back then it was a big deal,” he told People. “We are in a very different time. I lost maybe 50 percent of the fan base.”
Aiken said he immediately noticed the impact by observing the ticket sales for “Spamalot,” the Broadway musical in which he was appearing at the time of his coming-out.
“The first four months that I was in, the show was selling out, standing room only. You can actually look at the ticket sales the week after that cover came out,” he explained. “It went from selling very well to the week after the cover came out, the ticket sales dropped. ‘Spamalot’ ended up closing a few months after that.”
Though Aiken continued to record music and tour, his album sales waned considerably. For much of the past decade, he’s been focused on politics, having run for Congress as a Democrat in his home state of North Carolina in 2014 and 2022.
Last month, Aiken unveiled “Christmas Bells Are Ringing,” a collection of holiday songs that’s also first studio album in 12 years. And though he has no regrets about coming out as gay when he did, he said he’s “thrilled” to see more LGBTQ+ artists and musicians being embraced by the mainstream in 2024.
“A lot of people who come out now end up having boosts in popularity because of it ... That’s mind-blowing to me because it’s the opposite of what happened when I came out,” he said. “But it means that there’s progress and it means that as a country, we’re headed in the right direction.”
Elsewhere in his People chat, Aiken confirmed that he’s currently single and is in no rush to find a long-term romantic partner.
“I just turned 46, and I have discovered I’m too old to change my ways for anybody,” he said. “Unless I can find somebody who’s happy to sit on the other end of the couch and not talk for hours at a time, then I’m perfectly fine not having to deal with that.”
He went on to note: “You shouldn’t have to change your ways, but we do. When we’re younger, we end up thinking we should... and then as we get older, we realize, ‘I just don’t have the energy for that.’”
As for Aiken’s “perfect soulmate,” he said he’s looking for someone who “is perfectly happy to go for a full 24 hours in the same house, but not having to speak.”
“That’s the dream,” he quipped.
