The American Idol alum accepted an award at the 2023 Creative Coalition Spotlight Initiative Gala on Saturday.
I’m the gay guy.
“And I made it to the final and I couldn’t believe it.
Arturo Holmes/Getty
I mean, I had no idea that it would go that long.
And then once I got off the show, I got signed a record contract.
‘And I was like, ‘Might be?!'”
Adam Lambert in concert in 2020.Noam Galai/Getty Images
“There were no gay guys.
It was kind of the Wild West in terms of that,” he continued.
And I did the kind of performance I had seen since I was a teenager.
I was feeling it.
Well, I got off stage and I got in trouble.
The connection was like, ‘How dare you?’
They banned me for a while.
They threatened me with a lawsuit.
It was like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s where we’re at.’
I didn’t know.
Now, Lambert believes the music industry considers it a “viable business move to sign gay talent.
And the film industry is moving forward.
There’s more and more queer stories being told.”
“Visibility is so powerful,” Lambert said, concluding his acceptance speech.
“The LGBTQ community has been under attack for a long time, are under attack again.
There’s a lot of conservative pushback, and making art that represents the queer experience and stars people.
That gives the LGBTQ community strength…hope.
It gives us inspiration.
It makes us shed some of that shame and self-loathing that we grow up with.
I’m so thrilled to be an artist in this time.
We have a lot of challenges in front of us.
It’s not over yet.
