“Mormon gay pop star” Tyler Glenn has come out.
“Yes. I am a happy and healthy Mormon gay pop star. I don’t know what it all means, but I’m ok with it,” Glenn tweeted after Rolling Stone teased an upcoming interview with the Neon Trees frontman.
“I’ve always felt like I’m an open book, and yet obviously I haven’t been completely,” Glenn confesses. “I had my crushes on guys throughout high school, but it was never an overwhelming thing until my twenties. Then I’d be dating girls and in love with my straight friend and it was the worst feeling in the world.”
His Mormon upbringing didn’t seem to affect his sexuality: “We were always taught, and I hate this word, ‘tolerance,’” he says. “The only time that felt different was when the Prop 8 thing came up.” Glenn is referring to when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spent an estimated $22 million fighting same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
Read the full feature, which will be published by Rolling Stone online tomorrow (March 25). Until then, check out Neon Trees’ video for “Sleeping With a Friend,” featuring Glenn’s serious dance moves: