Judas Prit Always Knew Rob Halford Was Gay, Ex-Member Spills

WHY THE ONLY OPENLY GAY HEAVY METAL SUPERSTAR, JUDAS PRIT'S ROB HALFORD, HID HIS SEXUALY

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Judas Prit ontman Rob Halford has always lived a loud and proud heavy metal life, but only 1998 durg an MTV terview did he bee the first metal in to announce he is gay. “I thk that every gay person has a bigger story to tell than jt, 'Hello, I'm out, 's me, '” Halford, who turned 69 last month, told me a phone terview ahead of the book’s publitn on Tuday. He wanted to sce Iron Main sger Pl Di’Anno, and he sported bandanas onstage that were a lor-d ve to gay amid the lorful stori are darker moments, both terms of dtry algs and pecially keepg himself closeted for so long.

Halford was born 1951, and homosexualy was illegal the U. While a few mastream metal ontwomen like Otep and Lzzy Hale have been open recent years about beg gay or bisexual, Halford remas the only major gay male metal fans are often attracted to the aggrsive and theraptic nature of the genre — ’s a great way to let out pent-up tratn and feel empowered — and many skew more to the right than some of their ins. Unlike his famo peers, Halford was navigatg heavy metal’s bchero, dg-fueled 1980s heyday and the heights of his own band’s stratospheric populary as a closeted gay man who was petrified about the potential nsequenc of revealg his te self.

ROB HALFORD LOOKS BACK ON G OUT AS GAY ON MTV: “IT’S A GLOR MOMENT”

“What if got out that I was gay, fans didn’t want anythg to do wh a band onted by a queer, and killed Judas Prit stone ad? ” He soon had to open a new office Arizona to handle all of the grateful letters om queer fans thankg him for givg them the strength to live their own Halford CostelloNow, after livg the public’s electric eye for most of his life, heavy metal’s most famo tattooed leather daddy (who’s actually been as good as hched for 30 years and scrib his own sex life as “vanilla”) proudly refers to himself as “the stately homo of heavy metal.

Around that time, he also me out as gay, which uld have been a risky move sce metal was still led by machismo.

Of urse, me beg the gay metalhead fashnista, I uldn’t wa to really extrapolate on that and take to all those glor plac wh the help of my ma guy, [clothg signer] Ray Brown, who’s been wh Prit forever makg the credible works of art.