"Yes, I am gay," Callea said yesterday.

"I have no issue with my sexuality now, but it's taken time to become confident with who I am and happy with who I am."

Callea, 24, said he was already planning to come out before Edge 96.One FM traffic reporter Vic Lorusso outed him on the station's breakfast show earlier this month.

"I wouldn't say this was forced, but the timing was weird. Two weeks before that I was talking about doing this. When that happened and I thought OK, maybe it's telling me something."

Callea said it had been difficult growing up gay in the Italian community and that, more recently, the support of his partner of two years, Paul, had been invaluable. The singer met Paul, whose surname he wants to keep private, while working on Idol.

"I wouldn't have been able to do this without his support. I'm being honest but I still have a personal life I'm going to keep private," he said.

He also suspected many of his fans won't be too surprised.

"I don't think it's a big issue. Who cares? This might create a bit of gossip around the water cooler but apart from that I don't think it's a major thing. If people have an issue with it, it's their issue. It shouldn't really be relevant to me being a singer and a performer."



Callea said he regretted denying he was gay during an interview in 2004 in the early days of his Idol experience.

He feared being outed may have harmed his chances in the contest. Since then, the singer has deftly avoided the topic of sexuality, although of late he stated it was often the first question during interviews.

"I didn't want to go through another round of interviews feeling that anxiety, freaking about what people would ask me," Callea said.

Callea states no one in the Idol camp, his record company Sony BMG or his management have ever insisted he hide his sexuality. However he admitted growing up as a gay Italian teenager was difficult.

"I went through a stage of major depression. I hated myself," he said.

"I went through a stage where I didn't want to be me. I didn't understand why I had to be this way.

"It would have been much easier not to be gay, I could have done what was expected of me and got married and had kids. But that's not reality any more.

"We don't live in the 1950s. But getting through that makes you a stronger person, it allows me to do what I'm doing now."

However the star, whose No.1 hit The Prayer is the highest-selling single in Australian chart history, hoped he will not automatically become forever known as "gay singer Anthony Callea".

"I want to be known as a singer and as a performer, this shouldn't change anything," he said.

Source: News.com.au / Cameron Adams, March 27, 2007