More than 25 years after publicly declaring his homosexuality, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford has reflected on that pivotal moment and the changes he's witnessed since, during an appearance on the Queer The Music podcast hosted by Jake Shears.
Asked if attitudes about sexuality have shifted in the heavy metal world since he came out in 1998, Halford responded: "Oh, yeah, although depending on where you're at. America is still incredibly homophobic. I've lived here for a long time and I've seen a lot happen since the '80s. It really gets me angry and upset. But when I go on stage and perform with Priest, some guys will say, 'I love Judas Priest, but I'm not gay.' [Laughs] You know that thing — 'I'm a huge fan of Priest, but I'm not a gay guy' — that still lives with me now to some extent. It might be a fraction.
"But when I walk out on stage, when Priest is doing headline tours and I know that everybody has come there to see this band and hear the songs that we've made and watch us perform, surely they're there with complete acceptance in their heart. Everybody in that room is, like, 'Well, we don't care' — as they shouldn't. They shouldn't care. It's about what you're doing. It's about your art and your craft and your work. That's all that matters."
Halford recalled how he came out by chance during a press appearance for his short-lived project 2WO, a collaboration with Trent Reznor and John 5.
"So I'm in New York doing a presser for 2WO, and I've got my black eyeliner on, I've got this fur coat. It's on MTV, the bald head and everything. We're talking about, da, da, da. They're talking about the band. And I go, 'Well, speaking as a gay man, this is' blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I heard somebody's clipboard drop on the floor, because I had literally formally announced to the world that I'm a gay man. So I did that show. I went back to the hotel, sat in the room, going, 'What have I done? What have I done?' And I was, like, 'I don't care.'"
Despite the unplanned nature of the announcement, Halford said it "felt very natural," and the response was immediate and deeply personal: "Within days my mailbox was filling up from people all around the world going, 'I can't believe what you've done. It's such a beautiful, powerful thing, and because you have done that, I was able to tell my mom and dad that I'm a gay person.'
"The good that came from that day, not only from this thing of letting yourself out of self-imposed prison, going beyond that, in the bigger landscape of reaching people that you will probably never meet in your life part, to get such incredibly intimate, personal, emotional letters was just so profound."
Halford was not with Judas Priest at the time, having departed the band in the early 1990s. He later returned in 2003, this time as a fully open gay man.
"So for me to go back into this Priest world, this ultra-macho, alpha male world of heavy metal, as a fully open gay man, and for the guys to welcome me back — the guys knew; everybody knew I was gay — but for the guys to welcome me back and not even mention it, again, it was just a pure act of love."
Looking back, Halford says his journey proves that, in the end, the music transcends labels and prejudice: "So it's a great story of the day of coming out. And then, 'What have I done?' to 'We don't care.' Again, it's all about the music."
