Ongoing History Daily: The world’s first openly gay pop star?

Today it’s not a big deal when a musician comes out of the closet.  “He or she is gay?  Okay. Big deal.”  But it wasn’t always this way. 

Take the experience of the first-ever openly gay rock star.  Any idea who that might have been?  His name was Bruce Wayne Campbell and adopted the stage name “Jobriath.”  He was a California singer who signed a major deal in 1973 and whose career was launched with great fanfare, including a $200,000 billboard in Times Square.  In interviews, he referred to himself as “a true fairy,” which, for 1973, was a pretty radical thing to do. 

Unfortunately, this honesty worked against him and he quickly sunk into obscurity and died of AIDs at the age of 37 on August 3, 1983.  It took over 20 years for some aspects of the music world are beginning to acknowledge Jobriath’s role as rock’s first openly gay performer.

Check out this trailer for a Jobriath documentary.