Boy Band Members Who Are Out As Gay, Bisexual or Queer
Boy Bands, a group of young male teenage vocal singers, have been a popular phenomenon in the music industry for a long time. They are known for their catchy pop-style of music which often includes matching choreography, stylized costumes, and extravagant stage settings in their live performances and videos. Today's boy band phenomenon emerged from the earlier a cappella barbershop quartets of the late twentieth century.
Boy Bands success has fluctuated throughout the years. They were extremely popular from the 1980s to the early 2000s, but then waned with the rising popularity of punk, pop, hip hop, and other genres. Lately, however, the popularity of boy bands has seen a resurgance. One thing that has changed is the theatrical component to their performance. Whereas the earlier popular era of boy bands focussed on highly artificial stage or video dance moves that aroused a female audience, today’s boy band choreography is much more relaxed. This can be attributed, in part, to social media which allows listeners to be critics en masse.
The mainstream popularity of boy bands in western music almost ensures that one or two members of each group identifies as gay, bisexual or queer. Having those individuals publicly identify as such can be challenging - the target audience tends to be teen-age girls. As well, most boy bands are created through the efforts of a professional producer or manager, and this individual often counsels members of the boy band on how to behave and present themselves publicly to maximize popularity and profitability. Most out gay boy band members talk about their early career days of having dual personas - the public heterosexual teen male, and the private gay individual - creating an authenticity paradox.
Today, boy bands appear in mixed musical genres, including the lead singer of hip hop collective Brockhampton, Kevin Abstract.
There have been sporadic attempts to create successful all-gay boy bands to cater to the LGBTQ dance club crowd. None of these efforts resulted in any success.
Nevertheless, there is a group of notable boy band members who publicly identify as gay, bisexual or queer. These individuals hail from Great Britain, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States, Scotland, and Puerto Rico. To read their fascinating biographies, simply click on their names:
Australia
- Lachie Chapman - The Overtones
Great Britain
- Mark Franks - The Overtones
- Jaymi Hensley – Union J
- Duncan James - Blue
- Andrew Kinlochan - Phixx
- Jamie Lambert - Collabro
- Kevin McDaid – V
- George Michael – Wham!
- Lee Ryan - Blue
- George Shelley – Union J
Ireland
- Mark Feehily – Westlife
- Stephen Gately – Boyzone
- Timmy Matley - The Overtones
New Zealand
- Robert Arnold – BoyBand
Puerto Rico
- Ricky Martin - Menudo
Scotland
- Les McKeown – Bay City Rollers
Taiwan
- Aaron Yan - Farenheit
The Netherlands
- Eloy de Jong - Caught In The Act
United States
- Kevin Abstract - Brockhampton
- Lance Bass – ‘N Sync
- Angelo Garcia - Menudo
- Jonathan Knight – New Kids on the Block
- Kevin McHale - NLT (Not Like That)
- Ricky Rebel - No Authority
See Also
- LGBTQ Rock Musicians
- LGBTQ Classical Music Composers
- LGBTQ Country & Western Singers
- Transgender Singers, Musicians and Composers
- LGBTQ Folk Music Singers
- LGBTQ Opera Singers
- Christian Singers Who Identify as LGBTQ
- Electronic and Synthetic Music Performers Who Identify as LGBTQ
- Celebrated LGBTQ Pianists
- Rhythm & Blues and the LGBTQ Community