Will Young: ‘When I came out in the 00s being threatened was a given’

Will Young came out as gay over 20 years ago in a very different time (Picture: Jo Hale/Redferns)

Will Young is synonymous with 00s Britain, having won the first series of Pop Idol in 2002.

Through the show, Will, now 46, earned pop superstar status with his debut track Anything is Possible, and with his nine albums that followed, he became a household name and LGBTQ+ legend.

While many fans will recall the huge explosion of media interest when he came out as gay shortly after the show, if it were to happen today, Will is happy to say no one would care.

‘I mean, it’s like chalk and cheese now,’ Will tells Metro this Pride Month. ‘I don’t often really remember the sort of mini traumas that would occur being openly gay and a public figure in the early 2000s. It was so different then.’

Will, then, a charming 22-year-old adjusting his eyes to the spotlight, wouldn’t have thought it was possible to be where we are in 2025.

When he won Pop Idol and came out as gay, Will was 22 (Picture: Tim Roney/Getty Images)

‘There was no legal support, you couldn’t get married. You just operated within how it was then, which was like, “Well, I’m going to get shouted out, I’m going to get threatened. No one’s gonna care.” That was a given, which seems bonkers now to think like that,’ he says.

When Will reflects on this time, he does so with even more respect for those who came before him in the 80s and 90s; the likes of singer Jimmy Somerville, Erasure’s Andy Bell, Pet Shop Boys star Neil Tennant, and actor Ian McKellen.

‘We have to remember those people and those before them, because they were pretty seminal,’ Will says.

Our chat comes just as the international human rights group ILGA-Europe ranked 49 countries on their legal and policy practices for LGBTQ+ people.

The results found the UK, twice top of the ranking in 2011 and 2015, has dropped to 22nd, from 16th place last year.

The singer says it was a different world back then (Picture: Getty Images) But he also says the way trans people are treated in the UK is ‘horrific’ (Picture: Brandon/Redferns)

Has Will noticed this shift?

‘Wow, that’s so interesting,’ he says, thinking: ‘I mean, I don’t think I have… That rather surprises me. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it was focusing on the T part of that.’

Here, Will refers to the treatment of the trans community in the UK, who are often the subject of intense political scrutiny and are more likely to be subject to harassment and violence than cis people.

‘You know, that’s just horrific,’ Will says of the UK’s treatment of trans people, with a twang of exasperation.

‘That’s horrific across the board, how it’s been politicised. It’s ridiculous. It’s 0.5% of people, and it’s but it’s always in the top 10 of anything political. It’s typical marginalisation.’

Will’s advocacy knows no bounds, and he recently revealed how he’s considering fostering children or becoming a school counsellor, putting his parental instincts to good use.

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