Jason Mraz on Accepting Himself and His Bisexuality

On the other side of "guilt and shame" was freedom for bisexual singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, and it's lead to one heck of a year.

Mraz has been tearing it up on the Dancing with the Stars dancefloor in recent weeks with partner Daniella Karagach.

Mraz, 46, also made it on the Out100 list this year. The Grammy-winning artist spoke with GLAAD about how he’s been better at accepting his bisexuality and shared a bit about his journey.

“I had to play out a lot of other scenarios before I arrived here. It’s both hard to do those and hard to unravel those, and what I’m basically describing is a divorce, you know?” Mraz explained. “And that’s very hard. You carry a lot of shame, guilt.”

The singer came out in 2018, while he was married to Christina Carano. Mraz said at the time that it was Carano who helped him start accepting himself. The two had been married since 2015 at the time.

Mraz announced over the summer that he and Carano had divorced.

It was a moment that made him have to learn really who he was by himself.

“You want to heal as many relationships of the past as possible and at the same time, step into this new acceptance and new identity or whatever I’m claiming, and that’s also hard,” Mraz said. “So being on the Out100 is… It’s nice to be acknowledged.”

“It’s as hot as the Billboard 100!” he added. Out is a sibling publication of The Advocate.

See on Instagram

Mraz explained that being on Dancing has been an emotional experience — one he wasn’t really expecting.

“All day you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, and that can be hard for anybody, any human, to accept themselves looking in the mirror,” he said. “On top of it, then my partner is asking me to move in ways that I’ve never moved before, and my reaction is, ‘I look silly.’ And then you break through that and it’s like, ‘OK, I feel kinda cool.’ And then it eventually becomes confidence, and so it is a journey.”

He added: “All day you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, and that can be hard for anybody, any human, to accept themselves looking in the mirror. On top of it, then my partner is asking me to move in ways that I’ve never moved before, and my reaction is, ‘I look silly.’ And then you break through that and it’s like, ‘OK, I feel kinda cool.’ And then it eventually becomes confidence, and so it is a journey.”

Earlier this year, Mraz spoke with The Advocate about being a queer musician.

“I will admit that I probably spent the first close to 20 years of my career just broadcasting as hetero,” he shared. “You know, saying 'girl' in my songs, and a lot of that is growing up on a conservative street. And growing up around homophobia and feeling like I needed to protect some secret.”

Mraz continued, “I was having these curiosities and experiences on the side that were starting to influence who I am and the kind of fun I wanted to have in the world and the kind of person I wanted to be in the world, which is more honest and more loving and more inclusive.”

His latest album Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride is out now.