It’s not every day the world gets a peek inside the life and process of a rock star.
Chris Martin sat down with Rolling Stone‘s founder and editorial director Jann S. Wenner for a rare in-depth chat for their video series The Rolling Stone Interview presented by Dodge, and explained pretty much everything the world has ever wanted to know. Among many interesting parts of their interview, The Coldplay frontman discussed going to boarding school as a child, and figuring out his sexuality.
“When I went to boarding school I walked a bit funny and I bounced a bit and I was also very homophobic because I was like, ‘If I’m gay, I’m completely fucked for eternity’ and I was a kid discovering sexuality,” he shared. “‘Maybe I’m gay, maybe I’m this, maybe I’m that, I can’t be this’ so I was terrified and then I walked a bit funny and I was in a boarding school with a bunch of quite hardcore kids who were also gone for their thing and, for a few years, they would very much say, ‘You’re definitely gay,’ in quite a full-on manner, quite aggressively telling me that and it was weird for me for a few years.”
The musician shared that it was a journey for him to realize that even if he was, it wasn’t a huge deal. “I start to worry about it for sure. About 15 and a half, I don’t know what happened,” he revealed. “I was like, ‘Yeah so what?’ and then it all just stopped overnight. It was very interesting. Once I was like, ‘Yeah, so what if I’m gay.'” This experience not only led to clarity for the singer about his sexuality, but also about his religious beliefs.
“Just growing up a bit and having a bit more exposure to the world thinking, ‘A lot of my heroes are gay’ or whatever. Whatever they are, it doesn’t really matter,” he shared. “So what that did was ease a big pressure and then made me question, ‘Hey maybe some of this stuff that I’m learning about God and everything—I’m not sure if I subscribe to all of this particular religion’…So for a few years, that was a bit wobbly and then eventually I just was like, ‘Okay, I think I have my own relationship with what I think God is’ and it’s not really any one religion for me.”
This new, more open Chris coincides with the release of Coldplay’s newest album Everyday Life, which Chris believes may be their most honest one yet. “This one has been bubbling for a while. Everyday Life and, between you and me and everyone who is watching, we had to grow a bit of balls to be able to do this one,” he revealed. “It’s the first time that we’ve really said what we think about some things and it’s trying to be empathetic and it’s a bit unfiltered. It’s completely unfiltered.”
Chris definitely knows how to turn his pain into amazing art.
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