Boybands: How Gay Can You Get?

I was told not to walk down Old Compton Street in Soho because there were ‘rumours’ about me and I was told not to flick my hair on TV because it looked gay. It wasn’t just our career that would have suffered if I’d come out – thousands of pounds were spent on us and many people’s jobs depended on us.

I was living with my boyfriend at the time, a photographer who was quite well known around London. I wasn’t paranoid about people finding out I was gay but I was f***ing miserable – that’s for sure. I lied a few times. I did a magazine interview where I was pointedly asked if I fancied men and I said no. That really upset some of my friends. What was I supposed to say? It’s not as if I was in Erasure – I was in a boy band. There was no space to get activist-y about it – it was a case of do you want a career or not?

I tried to manoeuvre around questions. Whenever I was asked who my ideal girlfriend would be, I said The Little Mermaid – how gay can you get? I had to make it up as I went along – we had no media training, no dance lessons, no singing lesions. Nothing was prepared, we were just thrown out there.

David where's your trousers?

There was no malicious plan, such as: ‘Let’s put two gay guys in a boy band and make sure no one finds out.’ The people who put us together were very short-sighted and didn’t think things through.

Being in the closet makes you absolutely miserable, which is one of the reasons I left the band. It’s horrible. It’s different for younger people now but there are generations of people who had, and still have, to be in the closet professionally. You end up having to compartmentalise your life psychologically, which is very damaging.

You monitor everything you say all the time. You don’t use gender-specific words when you’re talking about your partner or who you’ve been seeing. You end up lying through your teeth. You take on this view that there’s something wrong with you that has to be hidden. It has a negative psychological impact on you. It’s a horrible way to live.

David W Ross, formerly of boyband Bad Boys Inc, writing for Metro.

He forgets to mention their manager was Ian Levine, the former Heaven DJ and Hi Energy producer - and a big ole gay himself. 

David Ross was the gay actor dude taking straight-acting lessons in Stephen Fry's Out There, you may recall.

He has now done a fillum about the gay marriage or something, I Do.

Fagburn has no idea if it's any good or not.