Rebecca Black explains how ‘Friday’ helped her process her sexuality and eventually come out
Rebecca Black released “Friday” when she was 13 years old. (Christian Vierig/GC Images)
Rebecca Black, who came out as queer this month, has explained how her viral hit “Friday” helped her understand her sexuality.
While Black said earlier this year that she believes sexuality is on a spectrum, before this month she had never confirmed her own sexuality.
But in a recent episode of the Dating Straight podcast, Rebecca Black revealed that she had recently been through a breakup with a woman after a “pretty long” relationship, and that she identifies as queer.
Speaking to PRIDE, Black spoke about her decision to come out, and how the reaction to her viral song “Friday” helped her to get more in touch with who she was.
She said: “My sexuality and the choice to come out was something I thought about for, obviously, a long time, as any queer person does.
“I had made a choice when I had decided not to necessarily come out over the past few months, but to just stop really being so afraid of answering the question. It just happened naturally.”
Black said that growing up, her sexuality was “a question that I always asked myself”, but added: “I was so enamoured by specific people growing up, especially through my teens, that I didn’t really come into myself in my own romantic and sexual life until I was, not that this isn’t late, really, but it wasn’t until I was 18 or 19.
“20 was when I started really understanding that there was something more that I was attracted to and I was lucky to be surrounded by a group of people that made it really, really easy to express.”
Rebecca Black received death threats after the release of “Friday”.
When “Friday” was released, Rebecca Black was just 13 years old. Forced to deal with the reaction, which included hate and death threats, she said the experience led to a deeper understanding of herself.
She said: “I was so uncomfortable with myself for so long, just in general, growing up as a teenager.
“I always felt like I was a bit of an outcast just because of my relationship with my body. And obviously, this experience I had with ‘Friday’ kind of inhibited myself on all fronts.
“As I started to process all of that, dating became much easier and understanding my sexuality also became much easier. I was in a community that was so accepting.”
On overcoming her self-doubt, she added: “I just tried to be kind to myself. I have done a lot of work to try to reflect on what that meant for me, emotionally, as a kid going through that and going through having so many people having so many opinions about you from such a young age.
“It’s tough, it’d be tough for anybody. So just trying to be much more forgiving, I think, has helped make it a lot easier.”
