NEWS: Duncan James Talks About Being Gay Publicly For The First Time

<p>During last night’s Winter Carnival at The Club at The Ivy Pop Star Duncan James publicly talked about being gay.</p> <p>by Newsdesk | 17th Feb 2014</p><p></p><p> </p><p><img src="http://www.thegayuk.com/communities/8/004/009/928/388/images/4587661770.jpg" width="460" height="691" alt="Duncan James" title="Duncan James"/></p> <p></p><p>Duncan James delivered a speech, in which he publicly referred to himself as gay for the first time and received a standing ovation from those in attendance. He discussed the personal difficulties he had coming out to his mother and how he flew her to L.A to tell her about his sexuality.</p><p></p><p> He commented, 'I can truly appreciate the importance of the work the <a href="http://www.akt.org.uk/">Albert Kennedy Trust </a>does to help young people. Being gay myself, I feared the prospect of being rejected by my own family, friends and fan-base when I came out. Coming out is one of the most difficult things for a person to have to do and unfortunately not everyone in the LGBT community who has come out will have been as lucky as I was. This is why, for me, it’s an honour to be here tonight and support this fantastic charity.’</p><p></p><p>The event, which was organised by the Interlaw Diversity Forum raised over £50,000 which will go towards funding the Albert Kennedy Trust – which supports at-risk and homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) young people.</p><p></p><p>Daniel Winterfeldt, Founder of the InterLaw Diversity Forum and Head of International Capital Markets at CMS Cameron McKenna said “We at the InterLaw Diversity Forum were thrilled to continue to support the Albert Kennedy Trust. Duncan’s speech resonated with all of us all and I’m glad we were able to showcase the legal sector’s deep engagement with the wider community.”</p><p></p><p> </p><p><img src="http://www.thegayuk.com/communities/8/004/009/928/388/images/4592028588.png" width="380" height="318" alt="Duncan James" title="Duncan James"/></p> <p></p><p>This is first time that Duncan has publicly referred to himself as gay, rather than bisexual.<a href="http://www.thegayuk.com/magazine/4574334751/Duncan-James-'Bi-Now-Gay-Later'/5459211"> Last year Duncan James talked about his sexuality with GT</a> saying that he understood what the term Bi Now Gay Later meant. </p><p></p><p>He said: “I was 22 when I had my first gay experience…I’d become really good friends with this guy and then I looked at him dancing on stage one night and I realised I really liked him. A couple of months later we hooked up. But afterwards I had massive amounts of guilt; almost like wishing it’d never happened.”</p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-gay-uk/id616631043?mt=8">Read this and other stories on our free app</a></p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/the-gay-uk/id770600575?mt=8">Download our latest edition of TheGayUK</a></p><p></p><p> </p>