“All of my publicists were like, ‘Oh, just tell everyone you’re single… No one needs to know anything about anything because you don’t want to lose your fans,'” Malakar said on The Adam Sank Show
Former American Idol star Sanjaya Malakar has come out as bisexual. Malakar, who was a finalist on the sixth season of the show back in 2006, spoke out about his sexuality in a new interview on “The Adam Sank Show” podcast.
The Seattle native auditioned for Idol alongside his sister Shyamali, who was eliminated during Hollywood Week — while Malakar advanced to the season’s top 40 contestants. Despite fans voting him into the top 10, then-17-year-old Malakar’s vocal performances were notably criticized as “utterly horrendous” by judge Simon Cowell. Between the harsh critiques and unique ponytail-mohawk hybrid hairstyle he sported on the show, Malakar became the subject of jokes from many viewers and comedians at the time. Additionally, his sexuality became a topic of debate amongst viewers, many of whom assumed Malakar was gay and hiding his identity.
Speaking to podcast host Adam Sank, Malakar set the record straight. “I identify as bisexual. At the time [that I was on American Idol], I did not know, which was why it was so weird for me.”
He explained that growing up, he was “raised by women” and participated in theater. “I had a hard time figuring out how to interact with young boys because my dad’s from India and grew up in a temple, so there was never like, ‘This is how you are a boy.’ And then, my mom is an A-type personality, Italian-American woman, and [so are] her sisters and my sisters and all of that, so growing up I was already the awkward theater kid.”
“I always got along with theater kids. I always got along with gay kids and girls, so I was like, ‘OK, these are my people,'” he added. “But I don’t know. Everyone keeps telling me that I am gay, and I’m like, 7. I don’t even have any attraction to anyone, so why are you telling me this?”
He recalled, “At that time, that was a big thing as well, ’cause I grew up in a time when being called a f—-t in school was the worst thing that could ever happen to you. You had to be as hyper-masculine as possible to fit in, and coming up in 2007, it was like, ‘Being gay is OK, but you have to define yourself, and there’s this or that.'”
The team surrounding Malakar during his American Idol stint didn’t help the process of figuring out his sexuality. “All of my publicists were like, ‘Oh, just tell everyone you’re single. Be ambiguous. No one needs to know anything about anything because you don’t want to lose your fans,'” he said on the podcast. “And I’m like, ‘OK, but why am I manipulating what I know of myself to figure out what kind of fans I’m going to get because I’m still trying to discover who I am?'”
Malakar, now 32, he has since left the music industry and now works as a pastry chef and bartender. He told Sank that he feels more comfortable and confident in his sexuality today, though he hasn’t come out to his parents. “For me, at this point I don’t really care about what people know of my sexuality, and if I got into a serious long-term relationship with a guy I would bring him to my family, and they’d be like, ‘Oh, cool.'”
“My family’s not the kind of people I really need to come out to formally,” he continued, noting that it could be difficult to bring home a woman after expressing he also likes men. “A couple of my cousins are bi as well and have brought home gay partners and then come and married someone else. It becomes a big deal, and it’s not.”
He continued, “Unless it’s something serious, it’s not really their business. I’m not trying to f— any of them. I’ll come out to people if it’s a situation like this, but if I’m not trying to f— you, it doesn’t matter. You’ll know if I do.”
He also clarified during the interview while he is currently single he did recently reconnect with someone, but that: “It’s complicated all the time.”
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