From the Advocate magazine in partnership with Glad, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ and A.

Today, Rufus Wainwright is here to talk about his rather interesting career.

He is one of the very first mainstream singers to start their career out of the closet.

This was back in 1998.

And now we have more out singers, I mean, count, thank God, right?

But in the 90s, in the early 2000s, this was rare.

And as you'll hear Rufus say, he saw that for people who weren't out

or who didn't bring up their sexuality per se, they

definitely went further in their careers.

So we talk about that, about what's changed, what hasn't, and of course we talk about his

brand new album, Unfollow the Rules.

That is out this week.

Now, if you enjoyed this interview, please help us to spread the word on social media or

text or group chats. Doing things like that is a huge way to help our show grow, so thank

you so much to everyone for that. All right, here is Rufus.

You know, your first album came out in 1998, and I have to tell you, looking back, I think it's wild that professionally you've never been in the closet.

Right. It's something that I actually had to fight for a little bit at certain points in my career.

I mean, when I started in 98, the first meeting I took with my record company, with DreamWorks Records,

I emphatically stated to them that I was gay and that I wasn't going to hide that,

and that as long as they understand that, we can keep going.

And they agreed, and we were then off to the races.

So, you know, I don't claim to be the first out gay artist,

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