Will Young has recalled his unlikely experience at Buckingham Palace in a candid and wide-ranging new interview on Tuesday.
The Pop Idol singer, 45, discussed what it was like having lunch with the Queen when he revealed a surprising detail.
Speaking on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast this week he opened up about coming out after his rise to fame after the show in 2002.
Will announced publicly that he was gay fresh from winning the show amid reports a newspaper was planning to out him.
During the chat he discussed going for lunch with the Queen at Buckingham Palace at the time and he claimed ‘a lot of the butlers were gay’.
Will Young has recalled his unlikely experience at Buckingham Palace in a candid and wide-ranging new interview on Tuesday (pictured in 2001 on Pop Idol)
The Pop Idol singer, 45, spoke on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast this week and discussed what it was like having lunch with the Queen
Will said that at the time coming out was unusual but that lots of the staff working there approached him to talk about it.
He explained: ‘I went for lunch with the queen, and it was eight of us, and I was really nervous. And all a lot of the Butlers, people working there were gay men, so and I’d just come out.
‘And it was quite a big thing then, you didn’t often get a male pop star at the beginning of the career coming out. It just wasn’t big.
‘And so they were coming up to me in secret and going, and one of them came up and went, thank you so much. And obviously they’re not allowed to talk to you. They’re not allowed to do anything.
‘Obviously they weren’t allowed to do that. And then I went off to the loo, and another one was like, thank you so much. I mean, I could cry. It was amazing!’
It comes after last week Will was forced to apologise after he swore during an appearance on Channel 4’s mid morning show Sunday Brunch.
The star left hosts Simon Rimmer and Tim Lovejoy in shock after he turned the air blue while recalling an incident at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Will recalled sitting in the front row of a stand-up show only to discover the comedian’s jokes were all at his expense.
He also opened up about coming out after his rise to fame after the show in 2002 and claimed ‘a lot of the butlers were gay’ at Buckingham Palace
It comes after last week Will was forced to apologise after he swore during an appearance on Channel 4 ‘s mid morning show Sunday Brunch
Saying: ‘The bulk of her show was about me, and obviously probably not very nice about me, and I was in the front row’.
‘She said “I don’t know what to do because my show’s sort of taking the p*** out of Will Young and Will Young’s sitting at the front”‘
Host Tim quickly jumped in and turned to the camera saying: ‘I must apologise for using that word’.
Realising his error Will threw his hands to his mouth in horror and cried: ‘Oh sorry, I’m so sorry! Is that a bad word? Was it? I’m so sorry’.
It came after the singer claimed that he felt ‘pressured’ to continue with Strictly Come Dancing after threatening to quit the show due to his severe agoraphobia.
He famously quit the BBC show back in 2016, and in a new interview, has claimed that he was warned the channel would ‘never work with him again’ if he chose to pull out of the programme.
At the time Will cited ‘personal reasons’ and ‘anxiety’ as the reason for his and his partner Karen Hauer’s departure from the show after week three, and he went onto reveal that he entered therapy after considering suicide in the wake of his exit.
However speaking to Rylan Clark on his BBC podcast How To Be In The Spotlight, Will revealed: ‘I tried to pull out of it, but I was sort of pressured to do it.’
‘It was sort of like “Well, if you pull out, the BBC will never work with you again”.’
‘That was one of the things that was said to me, so I did it, but I knew I wasn’t well enough.’
contacted BBC representatives for comment at the time.
He continued: ‘You know, when you’re getting flashbacks and all those kind of things, for me, it was agoraphobia.’
‘So agoraphobia was really bad for me. So literally throughout that stage, I didn’t even know where I was. ‘I’m on that show. If you ever watch it back, I was not even in the room.’
‘I had people messaging me going, this isn’t good, you’re not well. But I tried to get out. I was just so agoraphobic. I could barely get to the studio to rehearse.’
Will left the show after his Bollywood-themed Salsa to Jai Ho, as he explained: ‘Even though the Bollywood dance was good. Sometimes I still watch that back. because I’m really proud of it.’
‘I thought “No, no, this isn’t going to work, I’m not doing this anymore”. Literally after that night.’
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Will Young says he felt 'pressured' to continue with Strictly and was warned the BBC would 'never work with him again' if he quit the show as he reveals he considered suicide after pulling out
‘Also, people put pressure on for money… I didn’t necessarily have the most supportive people behind me at that stage.’
Elsewhere Will also opened up about his relationship with his late twin brother as he revealed her confronted him about fame turning him into a ‘machine’.
Will’s twin Rupert took his own life in 2020 after years of battling alcoholism, however before he died he told the singer he didn’t understand why he had turned so ‘steely’ and ‘cold’.
Will said: ‘I maybe became a bit too steely and I remember my late brother saying to me, ‘You’ve become a bit cold’ because I think I was so shut off to it.
‘I remember it was so sad. I could well up about it because he was crying. He was like, ‘I don’t understand what has happened’.
‘I think I was so focused in my head. I was like, ‘You’ve got to get through these five years to have a career’.
‘So, all the c***, all that stuff, I think that made me a little bit machine-like. I wanted to be a famous singer from the age of four [and then] my first gig was at Wembley.’
Will previously spoke about his devastation at Rupert’s death and the family’s pain while dealing with his alcoholism.
The star left hosts Simon Rimmer and Tim Lovejoy in shock after he turned the air blue while recalling an incident at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
It came after the singer claimed that he felt ‘pressured’ to continue with Strictly Come Dancing after threatening to quit the show due to his severe agoraphobia
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I miss my brother, he was my twin and my best friend, but I don’t miss the alcoholic.
‘I don’t think alcoholism is spoken about enough and it is important to speak out about what it is like to live with someone who has alcoholism in the family, and what that can do to a family.
‘It was difficult, but it is amazing what we do out of love for people. I just didn’t want my brother to die. In the end I didn’t manage to keep him alive, and that is part of my grief process.’
Great Company with Jamie Laing is available on all podcast providers.