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| Brendon Urie of 'Panic! at the Disco' (image via Flickr/Tarah - CC license) |
In a new interview, Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie casually comes out as pansexual.
At the same time, he’s announced his newly launched Highest Hopes Foundation, which aids non-profit organizations that advocate support for human rights.
GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) is the first recipient of the foundation receiving a generous $1 million donation to aid in the formation of gay/straight alliance clubs in high schools.
“Launching the Highest Hopes Foundation with GLSEN as our first cause feels natural to the DNA of P!ATD, I am beyond excited to see what we can do together,” says Urie.
“Some of the most inspiring leaders out there right now have come from GSAs. Working firsthand with GLSEN, student leaders everywhere, and all my fans, I want to make sure that every one of our future leaders out there has the support they need to form their own GSA and begin their work to make a better world.”
A longtime LGBTQ ally, back in 2012 Urie got attention for tweeting, “Everyone’s a bit gay.”
Then in 2013, PrideSource asked if he still believed that everyone has some gay in them and he was clear: “I find myself being attracted to dudes all the time. I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s a beautiful man.’ There’s no shame in it; that’s how I feel. To stifle that would probably bring on stress and probably make somebody homophobic.”
He went on to say in the same interview that he would classify himself as straight but admitted to experimenting with homosexuality and bisexuality.
Speaking to PAPER Magazine today, Urie seems a bit more forthright about his view of sexuality:
“I’m married to a woman and I’m very much in love with her but I’m not opposed to a man because to me, I like a person. Yeah I guess you could qualify me as pansexual because I really don’t care. If a person is great, then a person is great. I just like good people, if your heart’s in the right place. I’m definitely attracted to men. It’s just people that I am attracted to.”
“I guess this is me coming out as pansexual,” he added.
Urie also admits that what he calls his “stage gay” behavior has made some folks uncomfortable in the past. In early concert tours, it seems he’d sidle upside his band’s guitar player and kiss him on the neck or mouth.
“I was like, I just want to kiss you bro,” says Urie. “I would hang out with friends and after five or six beers we're just kind of like smooching on each other. People just get hammered and fool around.”
Following a recent ten-week stint on Broadway in the hit musical, Kinky Boots, Brendon rejoined his Panic! at the Disco bandmates for their latest release, Pray For The Wicked, which dropped June 22. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200.
Panic! at the Disco will also donate $1 to the Highest Hopes Foundation for every ticket purchased to the North American leg of their Pray for the Wicked tour.
The band heads out on the road this month with lesbian pop singer Hayley Kiyoko as the opening act.
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