Adam Levine Disses ‘American Idol’ Over Failure to Encourage Gay Contestants to Come Out

In a new interview, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine blasts ‘American Idol,’ claiming the show discourages gay contestants from being open about their sexuality.

Levine — who’s one of the judges on the rival singing competition show ‘The Voice’ — told Out magazine, “What’s always p***ed me off about ‘Idol’ is wanting to mask that, for that to go unspoken. C’mon. You can’t be publicly gay? At this point? On a singing competition? Give me a break. You can’t hide basic components of these people’s lives. The fact that ‘The Voice’ didn’t have any qualms about being completely open about it is a great thing.”

Four contestants on ‘The Voice’ were openly gay, and two — Beverly McClellan and Vicci Martinez — reached the finals. Two past ‘American Idol’ contestants — Adam Lambert and Clay Aiken — did not reveal they were gay until after they competed on the show.

Levine recognizes that he’s taking on a mammoth opponent. “I can’t f*** with ‘American Idol.’ It’s a cultural institution,” he says. “On ‘The Voice,’ we just care about a different list of things. It’s for a different type of person, I guess.”

‘The Voice’ host Carson Daly has also praised his show’s gay-friendly aspects, saying, “The thing about ‘The Voice’ is no one knew anything about anybody. It’s not like it’s a gay-friendly show on purpose … There wasn’t any bias, but we embraced the fact that the gay community was so well represented in our show, and we were very proud of that.”

[Out]