Joshua Bassett says he has no regrets about coming out publicly earlier this year.
“Funnily enough it was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done and one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done,” the 20-year-old singer-actor told Attitude. “I wrote the statement in less than five minutes. It all came out at once and I was like, ‘Yes, let’s post it,’ and felt really great about it and never looked back.”
Bassett is referring to a statement he shared on Instagram in May that read, in part: “Love who you love shamelessly. It’s OK to still be figuring out who you are. Life’s too short to let ignorance and hatred win. I choose love.”
It was in response to chatter Bassett sparked after he referred to Harry Styles as “hot” during a Q&A for Clevver News.
“My team were making me aware that it was blowing up, and they were, like, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m not worried about it, let’s see what happens… I don’t think I need to say anything about it,’” he recalled.
“But it kept going and growing – I was seeing comments and stuff, and I was, like, this is an important opportunity to say something that I’ve wanted to say for a while, but never felt like I had to, and never felt like I could.”
Bassett said he isn’t putting any particular label on himself. “That’s something that I think is really cool about this generation, and the generation to follow; that you don’t need a box, and you don’t need to be put in a box,” he said. “But I would say that it definitely took a lot of time to realize that.”
In a Q&A at his Attitude cover shoot, Bassett shared advice for young people who were in the same place he was.
“There is no right answer when it comes to your sexuality or sexual identity. You decide. If you don’t know yet then you don’t know and that’s that and that’s OK,” he said. “Don’t let anybody tell you you have to decide anything or know anything or figure anything out. Life is so long and life changes too. Don’t put any pressure on yourself to figure it out because nobody really figures it out.
“We’re all sort of making it up as we go.”