So is La Roux out..?

by Petit Fours

Has the androgynous synth-popper with the dizzingly high quiff actually come out? She’s been pretty coy about the sexuality thing, what with the whole it’s-a-secret-no-one-will-ever-know line. But maybe the shell is slowly cracking. In an article in the Observer a few days ago she said a couple of things that hint at a queer identity of sorts. A few gender-ambiguous lines:

“Most of the time as a child … I just wore tracksuits because I thought I was a boy. And when I was eight I became really into football and started wearing an Arsenal shirt every day.”

We forgive the football shirt.

“I went to an incredibly strict, religious private school, and it sucked the life out of me.”

Ow.

“When I got to 16 or 17, the people I was associating with at school didn’t fit in with the person I wanted to grow into. Although I didn’t know it then, I think I was incredibly stifled.”

Anyone sensing the classic awkard teenage coming out story in here..?

“Looking at the kind of women you see on TV, I wouldn’t think people would find someone like me attractive, but a lot of girls come up to me in clubs and say things like: “I’ve got a boyfriend, but I’m attracted to you.”

Well love, there are clubs where hardly any of the girls have boyfriends and they really dig the whole pinstripe trousers, girl-David-Bowie look. Email contact@themostcake.co.uk for further details…

Um, moving on, it’s a bigger question though. Should we be talking about celeb’s love-lives? should we be trying to out famous people, who may be staying in the closet for a reason? the old-school consensus was no…but these days I don’t know. Of course it’s always best to let people come out on their own terms and just because they’re in the lime light doesn’t mean they get any slack from the media – quite the opposite from some parties.

Mika’s doing this too at the moment going all secret and coy about teenage angst and who he’s in love with. A BBC interviewer wrote this last week:

“Despite being pretty much the campest thing to happen in pop since Elton John complimented Freddie Mercury on his fetching catsuit, Mika has remained coy about his sexuality. When asked, he has always said he would let his lyrics do the talking. So Toy Boy might raise eyebrows.

It includes the lines: “Your mama thought there was something wrong, didn’t want you sleeping with a boy too long. It’s a serious thing in a grown-up world, maybe you’d be better with a Barbie girl.”

Is Toy Boy about him?

“Everything I write is about me,” he replies.

“I have no problem putting things like that into songs. But when it comes to interviews, it’s now a little bit more difficult because the more you put your heart on your sleeve in a song, the more the aftermath is trickier to deal with.”

Okay, I see it’s complicated. And that it’s your emotional life not just your political status, so there’s a lot of fear of rejection mixed in there. But guys… can’t you just be gay? and fuck other people’s reactions?

Though, I am writing this under a pseudonym so – what can I say…?