Harry Styles arrives for the 2019 Met Gala. (Karwai Tang/Getty)
In today’s ‘love Harry Styles even more’ challenge, the singer has, once again, refused to define his sexuality in a way that’s as refreshing as it is honest.
With his dangly earrings and diet of cod sperm, the Fine Line musician has often been tangled in fans and reporter’s musings on his sexuality, whether he is bisexual and whether he’s hiding it.
Moreover, his upcoming solo album, fluffed with pastel colours and sexually-charged anthems, has been accused of being a textbook example of queerbating.
Is the former One Direction singer queerbaiting? ‘No’, he says.
In an interview with The Guardian, the 25-year-old was asked whether he, “happens to be a straight dude sprinkling LGBTQ crumbs that lead nowhere”?
“Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No,” he replied.
“In terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with.
“I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool.
“And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun.
“Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”
Harry Styles: ‘Who cares’ what my sexuality is.
Blurring is a big part of Styles’ playbook, whether it’s his dress sense, his grainy voice, or musical genres. The reporter enquired whether Styles blurs his sexuality, too, and whether people have asked if he’s bisexual.
“Uhm, I guess I have been asked,” he replied, “But, I dunno, why?”
“It’s not like I’m sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back.
“It’s not a case of: I’m not telling you cos I don’t want to tell you. It’s not: ooh this is mine and it’s not yours.
“It’s: who cares? Does that make sense?
“It’s just: who cares?”
He held a similarly honest attitude towards clothing as well, especially after his MET Gala 2019 ensemble, freed from his boy-band image, embraced lace and the concept of camp.
“If I see a nice shirt and get told, ‘but it’s for ladies’, I think: ‘Okaaaay?’,” he explained.
“Doesn’t make me want to wear it less though.
“I think people are asking, ‘Why not?’ a lot more. Which excites me.
“It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring.”