Following the release of his brand new album Fine Line, Harry Styles has a chat about his sexuality in a new interview with The Guardian.
In the last few years, Styles has been commended and praised for his flamboyant fashions and for challenging gender norms. Styles says he just allows himself to like what he likes.
"What women wear. What men wear. For me, it’s not a question of that. If I see a nice shirt and get told, 'But it’s for ladies.' I think: 'Okaaaay? Doesn’t make me want to wear it less though.' I think the moment you feel more comfortable with yourself, it all becomes a lot easier...I think it’s a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, 'Why not?' a lot more. Which excites me. It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring..."
The interviewer then slyly asks if that fluidity is a reflection of Styles' sexuality.
"There’s a popular perception, I say, that you don’t define as straight," says reporter Tom Lamont. "The lyrics to your songs, the clothes you choose to wear, even the sleeve of your new record—all of these things get picked apart for clues that you’re bisexual. Has anyone ever asked you though?"
"Um. I guess I haaaaave been asked?" says Styles. "But, I dunno. Why? Yeah, I think I do mean [why ask the question]. It’s not like I’m sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back. It’s not a case of: I’m not telling you cos I don’t want to tell you. It’s not: ooh this is mine and it’s not yours... It’s: who cares? Does that make sense? It’s just: who cares?"
Styles has been accused of queer-baiting in the past, and he seems to address that in the interview as well.
"Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No…in terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that."
So on the subject of his sexuality, Styles concludes:
"What I would say, about the whole being-asked-about-my-sexuality thing—this is a job where you might get asked. And to complain about it, to say you hate it, and still do the job, that’s just silly. You respect that someone’s gonna ask. And you hope that they respect they might not get an answer."