The pop star opens up about being bi in the music industry.
It’s Bisexual Awareness Week and out and proud bisexual Cuban-American pop star Lauren Jauregui has given yet another awesome, inspiring interview, reminding us why we love her so much. The 21-year-old singer spoke to Out magazine all about being queer in the music industry, sharing some of the struggles she’s faced when dealing with her own sexuality. Here are a few of the highlights, hand-picked for your pleasure.
On homophobic haters:
“People still talk shit, but it’s like, why does it make you feel gross? You can watch a kid get bombed and not do anything about it, but you can’t watch me kiss my girlfriend? Go fuck yourself.”
On closeted celebrities:
“A lot of artists are held back by the notion that they’ll lose their fan base or alienate themselves. Even friends and family would tell me to keep it to myself. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, Why?”
On crushing on another girl in high school:
“I was in a Latin household and part of a Catholic community. What was I going to do?”
On appearing on X Factor when she was only 16:
“That messed me up, growing up in the public eye when I was a teenager. That’s when everyone is trying to find themselves.”
On making bisexual anthem Strangers with fellow bi singer, Halsey:
“I got a text from her: ‘Hey, babe, you can totally shut this down, but I was thinking we could switch the pronouns.’ I was like, ‘Bitch, I was thinking the same thing!’”
On that open letter to Trump supporters, in which she came out as a “proud, bisexual, Cuban-American woman”:
“Even the fact that I labelled myself makes me mad sometimes, because dude, I’m just a free spirit.”
On being both an artist and an activist:
“There’s this notion that artists are supposed to be dumb and frivolous. I completely disagree with that. Madonna, Bob Marley, John Lennon—they didn’t talk about bullshit.”
On her aspirations:
“I want to make music that makes people feel things and think differently and want to be on [my] side of thinking, like, come be cool with me.”
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