UK Singer Calum Scott Says Friends Abandoned Him After He Came Out As Gay

Britain’s Got Talent star Calum Scott, whose debut album Only Human hit number 4 on the UK Album Chart in 2018, has spoken out about how his friends “abandoned him,” after he came out to them.

Their reaction to his revelation left the singer struggling for years to accept his sexuality. Scott, who recently performed at the 62nd TV Week Logie Awards, has also spoken about how he has become a stronger man since he came out.

In an interview with Attitude, Scott said, “That for me made me suppress my sexuality for most of my teens, most of my twenties. It was a traumatic event. I’d seen what me being honest had done and how it had crushed me that I was like, well, for me, now I’m never going to tell anybody else because then I’m going to lose more people.”

‘I Came Out To My Mum’

The English singer and songwriter, who rose to fame after competing on the ninth season of Britain’s Got Talent in 2015 where he placed sixth, told Metro that while his friends didn’t accept him, his parents “were pretty great with my coming out.”

“I wrote a song called No Matter What from the first album that details when I told my mum and she said she loved me ‘no matter what’ and it was this beautiful moment I had with her where I was finally able to get it off my chest,” Scott said.

“When I released that song, it was me making peace with it and realising that actually my story’s one of hundreds and thousands and I thought, if I put that out there considering the kind of platform I have, this is the perfect opportunity for me to highlight a really important topic.”

“At first I was so ashamed of myself and then the more people I told, the more comfortable I felt,” Scott told Gay Times. “But on a wider scale, I was still not out by this point. So my close family and friends knew, but I was scared to let it go any further than that. For it to be common knowledge just worried the hell out of me.”

A Song Born From Loneliness, Acceptance

The singer told Attitude the positive fan reaction to No Matter What taught him to “use my own circumstances however painful to create a tool for people.”

 “That for me felt like my acceptance. Not only did I accept myself as somebody who was honest, who talked about their situations but for me to talk honestly and openly about being a gay man, which I would never have done.”

“No Matter What is without question the most personal song I have ever written, and the one I am most proud of,” Scott said of the song at the time of its release.

“It’s a song born from loneliness, acceptance and the heartbreaking but liberating tale of my coming out experience. What I love about this song is that it isn’t just limited to a story of sexual identity, but about the relationship between parent and child and acceptance as a whole. This song didn’t make my debut album because I simply wasn’t ready at that time to give it to the world.”

Coming Out In Public

Scott came out publicly in 2016. Scott told Metro the negative reaction of his friends allowed him to “understand the pain that comes with being misunderstood and not feeling like you’re part of anything.”

“That’s the most valuable thing is that in my honesty, putting that out was a huge decision because I’d come into this business not necessarily wanting to talk about my sexuality,” Scott said. 

Scott, who released his sophomore album Bridges June 17, told Metro, “I wanted to skateboard and BMX and do all the stuff that we did because I was 13, 14 years old. Girls were coming into our group and I was just like, I want to skateboard.”

“It was very innocent for me at the time but then because I felt like I was different from them, all of a sudden I started scrutinising myself, got really down on myself to a point where I felt like I had to tell somebody and I’m a total mummy’s boy so I trusted my mum.”

Boys In The Street

On his latest album, Scott covers Boys in the Street, a 2015 track from Scottish singer Greg Holden. The song recounts a father’s struggle to accept his openly gay son.  “The beautiful thing about the way that the song is crafted is because it talks about that pain and then it starts to get a bit better,” 

Scott, who told Gay Times that he had been “struggling” with his mental health during the pandemic, said, “I think my mental health and what’s been going on around me during this album has very much made it into the DNA of Bridges.” 

The stark black and white video for the single is directed by Jackson Ducasse, who also has directed videos for Ellie Goulding and James Bay.

Scott also recalled to Attitude how his first experience attending Hull Pride, before he came out, was a strange experience for him. “There’s so much going on and so much colour and so much personality and things like that, that for somebody like me it was exciting but it was also scary because I hadn’t come to a place where was confident with it and yet I was at an event where everybody seems very confident.”

Scott is set to embark on a 25-date worldwide tour in support of his new album beginning July 30 in Seattle. The tour will include stops across North America as well as the UK, Europe, Asia and South Africa. There are confirmed dates in Australia as well, with shows scheduled for Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane in November.