Years & Years’ Olly Alexander has opened up about finding his sexuality
Olly Alexander for the band Years & Years had revealed that during high school he fooled around with a classmate who was straight.
The singer spoke about the relationship he had at 14 on a panel at the Student Pride event in London.
He opened up about finding his feet with his sexuality, and how he experimented to learn because school sex education left him “clueless” as a teenager.
Speaking on the Sex Education panel with transgender activist Paris Lees and National AIDS Trust representative Deborah Gold, the gay pop star said he wasn’t given proper sex education and that led to abusive relationships.
Alexander said: “I fell in love with a guy who was a year above me at school. He was straight. I think a lot of straight guys experiment at school, I don’t think it means anything.
“I thought he was in love with me too… but it turns out nothing came of it. We used to fool around at 14 or 15.”
“I had a few experiences with older guys I realise now that I was taken advantage of. I was desperate for the attention, the relationship. I was desperate for education,” he added.
He went on to credit the programme Queer As Folk for it’s role in teaching him about sex, which he knew nothing about before beginning to experiment.
“Gay people didn’t exist in our sex education. I had no idea how men even had sex with men. The first time I saw it was on Queer As Folk, and when a guy spat into the hand I couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t spoken about. It was hidden away. You could only guess just by talking with friends.”
The star also spoke about his anxiety surrounding HIV, and said that it deterred him from having a positive view about relationships.
“I had a huge anxiety about getting HIV. I don’t know where that came from, I just didn’t have a positive relationship about sex for a long time,” Alexander said.
