QUEEN's ADAM LAMBERT Addresses 'Toxic Masculinity' Within Gay Community

In a new interview with Josh Smith's Great Chat Show, QUEEN frontman Adam Lambert, who made history nearly a decade and a half ago as the first openly LGBT vocalist to have an album debut at the No. 1 position of the Billboard album chart, spoke about the effect "toxic masculinity" is having on young men, particularly within the gay community. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Think about it. We're already dealing with our own shame around who we are — especially gay men, I think. I think gay women have their own set of stuff that they deal with, too, but it's a little less scrutinized by the straight world… But I think the reason why gay men get it worse than the gay women is because of toxic masculinity. It's because society expects men to act a certain way, to look a certain way, and if you don't, you're not a man or you're not enough of a man. And people are so afraid."

After podcast host Josh Smith noted "we've all seen the pictures of the gays on their holidays" showing off their "six-packs and the abs", Adam said: "I saw a picture the other day and I was, like, 'Geez, they all look the same.' And they all look great. I'm, like, 'Go on. Good job. You were working real hard in the gym. Get it.'

"I get a little freaked out by that scene," Adam admitted. "I'm, like, 'Does anybody wanna look different? Does anybody wanna express something that's singular, that's their own thing to help them stand apart from everybody?', Like, why do you guys all look the same? And there is a thing, I think, within the queer community that I've noticed, where people don't wanna stick out. They don't wanna look weird. There is a mindset among certain gay men, like, 'I just wanna be, quote-unquote, normal. I'm just like a straight guy except I happen to sleep with men.' Okay. I'm not here to criticize that, but isn't that kind of boring? I don't know."

Lambert added: "Look, I'm a creative. It's different for me. I'm a theater kid. I'm an artist. Of course I'm gonna be more outrageous. And, of course, there are gay men that are sort of like… they live, quote-unquote, normal lives. They have a job that's a more pedestrian job, maybe. Their interests are maybe less colorful and weird and wild than mine, and that's fine. But how much of it is natural and just how they are, and how much of it is because they're afraid to express that? How much of it is because they just wanna be accepted? It's the chicken or the egg. What is it?"

Adam went on to say: "I think some of it is for the acceptance from the straight world, but I also think a lot of it is within the community too, is that there's such a shame around anything other than a masc man that all these guys are assimilating into that in order to be validated or in order to be desirable."

Earlier this month, Adam spoke to Audacy Music about this year's LGBTQ+ Pride Month, which commemorates the anniversary of the 1969 uprising at a popular gay bar in New York City. Asked what gives him the most hope today compared to how things were when he first started out, Lambert said: "Well, it's incredible how much change has happened. When I first came out into the music scene, there weren't really any other gay men doing mainstream pop music. I couldn't find any. Maybe one in the U.K. It was very slim. There were a lot of actors starting to become very visible and coming out that helped, but there was this wave starting of visibility, and I'm really proud to say that I was part of that wave that affected things like gay marriage and the idea that there's a lot of different types of people in the gay community. It's not just one cliché. Because we were coming out of an era where the one clown on a TV show was, queer. But that wasn't a broad, fully comprehensive picture of who we were. So I'm just really proud of all the progress we've made as a community. And yeah, the pendulum is swinging, and there's some ups and some downs, and there's some setbacks and obstacles, and that's just how it's gonna go. That's life and history. But I think we've done really well."

Asked what Pride means to him personally in the year 2026, Adam said: "Well, I think the only way we're gonna get through some of these challenges is with each other, the unity of it all, remembering that it is a community. I think the more mainstream the gay world gets, the less of a community exists. It's like we're not as close-knit because there's a lot more versions of us now, and they're more out there in the world, and people understand what they are. So there's a lot of segregation even within the community that is hard to see. Because in the beginning it felt like more of a small, tight-knit kind of experience. And everybody, if you look at the history of it, like back in the '70s when it was starting, the human rights and equal rights of it all, people were all dealing with kind of the similar thing. Society felt this way about gay people, our families felt this way about gay people. So people had a lot to identify with each other over, because they had the same struggles. Now, there's all these different types of struggles. Some people don't struggle at all, so for some people it's really easy. It's not that hard at all to be gay or bi or lesbian or whatever. For some people it still is.

"I would love to see Pride this year put some emphasis on us as a community," Adam continued. "And everyone's welcome, everyone's accepted, especially like our trans brothers and sisters right now that are really getting some harsh treatment from the country we live in right now.

"There are members of the community that sort of don't wanna acknowledge trans people as part of the umbrella, and it's just, like, come on," Lambert added. "Quit being a bully. It's like the you-can't-sit-with-us energy. That's not gonna get us ahead in this day and age. So I would just like to see Pride just be as inclusive as possible."

Last month, Lambert released the official Vitalii Akimov-directed music video for his latest single, "Eat U Alive". The track is taken from Adam's sixth full-length studio album, "Adam", which will arrive on Friday, July 10 via his own label, distributed via The Orchard.