Harry Styles On His Sexuality, Relationships & Tender Queer Love Scene

Harry Styles has made it perfectly clear in the past that he has no interest in putting a label on his sexuality, and that hasn’t changed. But in a recent profile by Rolling Stone, he’s opened up further about how the public has reacted to that line.

The former boy bander’s relationship with Olivia Wilde has been a point of debate among fans ever since it became clear they were an item last January. While many of Styles’ fans are supportive of his choices and respect that his life is his life, others have been more openly hostile towards his Don’t Worry Darling director, crafting their own narratives around the relationship that paint Wilde as a villain and Styles as a hapless captive in her web.

“That obviously doesn’t make me feel good,” he said. “It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something. I just wanted to sing. I didn’t want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that.”

With that in mind, it’s not surprise that Styles has largely decided to keep quiet when it comes to his relationships. He has spoken previously about how feeling “like the only thing that was mine was my sex life,” and he touched upon that with Rolling Stone, while also addressing the claim that he has only dated women, and has been guilty of “queerbaiting” despite his unwillingness to label his sexuality.

“Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone,” Styles said. “If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something.”

That answer may not satisfy the fans that are looking for something more definitive — or who spend their time declaring his relationship with Wilde fake — but it’s what Styles is willing to share with the world at the moment.

But he’s all too happy to speak about overt queerness when it comes to his upcoming movie, My Policeman, about a closeted gay man and the love triangle in which he finds himself. And fans may appreciate the nugget of insight that provides into Styles’ life, at least.

“I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it,” he says of the film.

He also opened up about his desire to depict what sex is really like between two men, specifically how tender it can be.  “So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it,” Styles shared. “There will be, I would imagine, some people who watch it who were very much alive during this time when it was illegal to be gay, and [Michael] wanted to show that it’s tender and loving and sensitive.”

My Policeman premieres on Prime Video on October 21.The full profile on Styles can be found at Rolling Stone.

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