Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford is on the precipice of releasing his highly-anticipated debut autobiography, Confess, and revealed he was once arrested for cruising.
Over the past few weeks, Halford has been offering fans a sneak-peak at what Confess will entail by sharing stories of his peculiar life. The rocker sat down in an interview with NME, where he was asked what impact he thought being “outed” would have had on him. The singer came out as gay in 1998 on MTV.
Rob Halford revealed to NME that he was once picked up by police after he was caught cruising Venice Beach toilets. “The police did me a favor by keeping it out of the press because it would have been big news,” he revealed. “I always refer to that, slightly tongue in cheek, as my George Michael moment. I was lucky, because the sad thing is it makes people who don’t understand the gay community just go, ‘Obviously, they’re all just a bunch of perverts.’ And that’s horrible.
“I’d like to think for the most part if that incident had broken into the press, then a great proportion of my fans would have said, ‘We’ll support you and stand with you.’ A few years later, when I came out on MTV, that was a proven fact because the feedback from around the world was positive — they just wanted me to continue being the singer for Judas Priest and get on with the job.”
Halford previously opened up about the experience of coming out as gay in the metal realm in an interview with The Press Of Atlantic City — revealing that he anticipated fans to reject him. “I probably deluded myself into thinking I would get rejection,” he said. “Nothing could have been further from the truth.”
“When you make that choice of stepping out and facing the issue of disclosure, you do create this kind of self-imposed negative fear. It’s unfortunate it still happens today. ‘Do I step out and say I’m a gay guy?’ But you have got to do it and live your life on your terms and no one else’s terms.
“Don’t say you can’t do this and you are worried about people being offended. If they push you away, then they push you away. Grab life by the horns and tell them, ‘Take me for what I am and who I am and if you don’t like it, that’s your thing. Not my thing.’
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“If I had been in the band at the time … I think when it happened was a good moment. The fans were amazing.”
Confess will arrive on Tuesday, September 29th.
Check out ‘Breaking The Law’ by Judas Priest:
