Adam Lambert Tells the World: 'I'm Gay'

Entertainment Tonight, Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 7:58am (PDT)

Entertainment Tonight.

"American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert finally addresses the intense speculation about his sexuality and reveals why he waited until now to publicly announce it.

"I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay," Adam tells the new issue of Rolling Stone, hitting newsstands this Friday. "Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, 'I'm going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,'" he says.

Adam said he didn't want a repeat of the situation that happened with another "Idol" runner-up, Clay Aiken, who waited years before publicly acknowledging his homosexuality. "I didn't want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bull----. I need to be able to explain myself in context," 27-year-old Adam tells the magazine. "I'm proud of my sexuality," he says. "I embrace it. It's just another part of me."

The singer, who also just announced a new record deal, says he felt that coming out as gay would have affected the tremendous reaction he was getting on "American Idol." "I was worried that [coming out] would be so sensationalized that it would overshadow what I was there to do, which was sing. I'm an entertainer, and who I am and what I do in my personal life is a separate thing. It shouldn't matter," he says.