Adam Lambert first captivated the world with his rendition
of "Bohemian Rhapsody" when he auditioned for American Idol,
but his life has changed quite a bit since then. Here's a look at his stunning transformation.
Lambert has been creative since he was a little boy,
and not just when it comes to music. His mother Leila told People Magazine in 2015,
"When he was a kid, any kind of arts and crafts, anything to do with being creative,
I always wanted to make sure he had anything you'd want."
Lambert's performing chops were also evident from a young age. When he was 8, he started acting with
the Metropolitan Educational Theatre Network, and he continued to train and perform with the group
for the next eight years. He also started vocal training during his childhood. He told Variety in
2019 that his voice teacher was like a mentor to him and that she trained him the material
of classic performers like Judy Garland, Liza Minelli, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and Cher.
Lambert has described his middle school self as, quote, "kind of a loner." He didn't have
too many friends or much of a social life. Fortunately, things got better in high school.
His social life improved as he was able to join clubs and find people with similar interests.
While he wasn't always comfortable around his peers, he's long been secure with himself.
When he was 18 years old, he came out as gay to his friends and family.
He told People Magazine that his mom was the one who encouraged him to do so. As he put it,
"When we had the coming out conversation she kind of initiated it, which was hilarious.
At that point, it was great because then we could talk about everything. There was never
a point where I was made to feel bad about myself, and I was kind of an out-there kid."
In a speech that he gave to young members of the LGBTQIA+ community
at London's Mosaic Centre in 2018, Lambert said that coming out was,
quote, "a relief." He also noted that being honest about who he was helped him improve
his relationships. After coming out, he became more confident and never looked back.
While many creative people go to college in order to hone their skills through advanced training,
Lambert decided to instead launch his career fresh out of high school. So he moved to Los
Angeles and began to land some gigs. One of his early jobs was a ten-month stint on a cruise ship,
and it wasn't long before his theatrical career took off.
In 2004, he landed the role of Joshua in The Ten Commandments: The Musical,
in which he starred alongside Val Kilmer. From there, he landed several more stage gigs.
Also in 2004, he starred in 110 in the Shade. Then in 2005, he was part of the
touring cast of Wicked, and in 2007, he was an understudy in the show's Los Angeles cast.
In 2008, Lambert auditioned for American Idol, which transformed his life forever.
He thought it was a long shot and that he wasn't the right type for the show,
but he nevertheless decided to give it a go.
"I'm going to Hollywood. I'm going back home, to Hollywood. I made it. Ahh!"
Since the show stipulated that a contestant couldn't be under an entertainment contract,
and Lambert was still attached to a production of Wicked at the time,
he had to quit his job after his first successful auditions in front of the Idol producers. His
great fortune continued as he went on to finish in second place in the show's eighth season.
Lambert's big break led to a lot of change,
and it was difficult to handle. He told Billboard in 2019,
"I was really overwhelmed in the very beginning. American Idol was so fast. All of a sudden I was
on magazine covers. I was dealing with the personal adjustment I had to make,
and then on top of it, there was all this energy behind being the gay guy doing it."
It was an exciting time, but also an exhausting one.
While Lambert has never made a secret of his orientation, he didn't publicly discuss
it when he was competing on American Idol. There was speculation at the time that the
reason he didn't win may have had to do with homophobia. He told The Guardian in 2018,
"As I started progressing in the competition...I started to realize that my sexuality was becoming
bigger than what I was doing, which, fundamentally, I felt was f---ed up."
He ended up publicly coming out in a Rolling Stone cover story shortly after the season finale,
but his struggle for acceptance was just beginning. His first album,
For Your Entertainment, was effectively launched with a performance at the 2009 American Music
Awards in which he kissed a male member of his band, which ended up being censored.
His label, RCA, was afraid that a focus on romantic appeal would hurt album sales.
In a 2017 Instagram post on the occasion of that album's eight-year anniversary, Lambert revealed,
"I was feelin my gender fluid (and fully photoshopped) glam rock fantasy. The powers
that be released a second cover for retailers who felt 'uncomfortable' [with] the original."
Despite all of the drama that marked Lambert's early career, he still caught the attention of
some pretty notable people, including a certain iconic rock band. In 2011,
he started collaborating with the surviving members of Queen. After Lambert performed
"Bohemian Rhapsody" at his Idol audition, Queen guitarist Brian May was inundated with messages
about Lambert's talent. In his book Queen in 3-D, he wrote that people were telling him,
"You must get together with this guy; he is the natural successor to Freddie [Mercury];
he is the guy you should be touring with."
Lambert first hooked up with Queen when May and drummer Roger Taylor were asked
to go on American Idol to perform with the finalists. Lambert's chemistry with the band
was immediately apparent, and he went on to perform his first concert with them in 2012.
In 2020, he told the Australian radio station Triple M,
"I hope that in some way I can carry on [Mercury's] spirit."
"What was it like to sort of try and step into those, those shoes?"
"Terrifying."
"Was it, yeah?"
"In the beginning, yeah, I was definitely intimidated by the whole idea."
Lambert's sound has changed a lot over the course of his career. His time at American Idol
established him as a powerhouse and his first album displayed a glam dance-pop sensibility.
But he's slowly moved away from that sound over the course of his career.
He made a big departure with his third album, 2015's The Original High. The San Diego
Union-Tribune hailed it as a quote, "assured, sophisticated and carefully calibrated work."
Lambert told the Union-Tribune that the shift in sound was deliberate and that he wanted to
move away from the, quote, "ridiculous, thematic pop" of his first two albums.
He also noted that he wanted a sound that was truer to himself on his third album.
His vocals were noticeably more subdued, but no less powerful on The Original High,
as he had perhaps come to realize that less is more.
Nearly five years passed between the releases of Lambert's third and fourth studio albums.
This hiatus partly had to do with the singer's schedule with Queen,
but there were also personal reasons at play. He wanted to give himself
time to find some inspiration. As he explained to Entertainment Weekly,
"I wanted to insulate my creativity and my songwriting and protect it from the business."
He also noted,
"In order to proceed how I wanted to proceed,
a lot of that comes from a place of self-worth and being like, 'You know what? I need to take
back my power,' or, 'I need to figure out the true love here. Where is my heart in all of this?'"
In an interview with BBC News, Lambert admitted that during his hiatus he was, quote, "fried and
disillusioned," as well as "detached" in his personal life. He also revealed that he needed
to get back on track and find his love for music again before he was able to record another album.
While Lambert's orientation was a hot topic when he first became famous, the fact that he's gay
is something that most people don't pay too much attention to anymore. This is all part
of a major, and much needed, shift in the music industry. As the singer told Variety in 2019,
"It's a totally different landscape. There is much
more visibility so it doesn't feel like a foreign or scary concept."
Lambert also noted that while everyone he met in the music industry supported him personally,
they were worried that him being openly gay would make him less marketable. Now,
however, it's clear that the public is much more accepting of LGBTQIA+ artists.
Lambert is glad that his orientation is no longer a popular topic of discussion, especially as it's
not something he ever considered to be that big of a deal. As he told the Independent,
"It's just who I am."
"The world still has homophobia in it, and there's still ignorance, but
I think that there's a lot of progress that's been made."
Lambert's fourth studio album, 2020's Velvet,
is notable because it was his first release through an indie label. He decided to make
the move from Warner Brothers and sign with the independent Empire. He made up his mind
after realizing that he didn't like how a lot of Top 40 music sounded. As he told BBC News,
"I was gravitating towards indie stuff that wasn't cookie-cutter pop."
So, in search of a more adventurous sound, he switched labels so that
he could create music that wasn't based largely on what was trending.
"It's a bit more soulful than anything I've ever done."
According to Lambert, moving to an indie label gave him more control over his music.
As he explained it,
"At a major label, it's always a compromise. There are certain ulterior motives,
and most of them are money-related. I wanted to be in a situation where
I could be in the driver's seat and say, 'This is what I want to put out.'"
Lambert started his career in the theater, so it's perhaps a bit surprising that he
hasn't done more theatrical acting since breaking through on American Idol. Instead,
he's branched out into film and TV, and he's managed to rack up a modest, respectable list
of credits. From 2013 to 2014, he had an arc on Glee as Elliot "Starchild" Gilbert. Then he
played Eddie in the live 2016 TV performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time
Warp Again. He also made an uncredited cameo in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
"I cruise Freddie at the truck stop. I walk to the men's room and kind of look
over my shoulder and then look back again. 'Cause, you know, it's the second look."
Lambert has also dabbled in voice acting with the role of Emperor Maximus in 2019's Playmobil:
The Movie. He hopes to do more acting in the future. In a 2019 appearance on the
Australian TV show Studio 10, he seemed to be hinting that he'd like to portray Elvis
Presley in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming film about the singer. Alas, that role ultimately ended up
going to Austin Butler, but hopefully we'll see more of Lambert on the big screen soon.
Things have changed a lot for Adam Lambert over the years. Not only has he become more
accepted in the industry, his priorities have also shifted quite a bit. In 2019, he told BBC
News that his happiness used to be tied to how successful he was commercially. But as he noted,
"It was unhealthy. I had to rethink things."
And rethink things he has. In a 2019 interview with Variety, Lambert admitted,
"My idea of success has evolved. Being allowed to continue being a creative as a career,
and live comfortably, is a blessing. It's easy to measure financial success by streaming numbers.
But to me, the most important thing is to find a sense of personal satisfaction,
and it's so much more than numbers."
Though Adam Lambert is worth a lot of money these days,
it's clear that he knows what's really important in his life!
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