Out artist Jake Shears covers the
latest issue of UK LGBT glossy Attitude's Masculinity issue.
The 39-year-old Shears, who is best
known as the lead male singer for the pop band Scissor Sisters, told
Attitude that he had a boyfriend nearly 20 years his senior
when he was 16 years old.
“It wasn't the best or entirely
appropriate,” Shears recalled. “I was lucky in the fact that I
didn't feel taken advantage of.”
“He taught me how to play the guitar
and introduced me to a lot of great music. But still, there was a
lot of confusion, hurt feelings that surrounded the scenario that I
could have done without,” he
added.
Shears also talked about coming out in
his teens to his entrepreneurial father and Baptist mother at the
urging of LGBT activist and advice columnist Dan Savage. Savage
would later call the advice he gave Shears the “worst advice” he
had ever given.
Despite his family's negative reaction,
Shears credited Savage and his now-husband Terry Miller with changing
his life.
“They changed my life,” Shears
said. “The made me feel like I had something to offer.”
Last month, Shears
released Creep
City, his first song as a solo artist.