For centuries, humans have been searching for the answers to the biggest questions about the universe like “Where do we come from?” “Why are we here?” and “Will Rihanna ever release another album?”
And yet one exhausting query will likely outlast them all: What is Harry Styles’ sexuality?
The “Fine Line” singer has been fielding inquiries about his love life since his One Direction days and interest has seemingly only grown in intensity during his solo career, as he’s adopted a decidedly more flamboyant aesthetic.
But Styles has consistently pushed back about labeling his sexuality in multiple interviews over the years and yet here we are in 2019 with another answer from the former boy bander about his personal life.
“It’s: who cares? Does that make sense? It’s just: who cares?” Styles responded when asked about his sexuality in a recent Guardian interview.
“It’s not like I’m sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back,” he added. “It’s not a case of: I’m not telling you cos I don’t want to tell you. It’s not: ooh this is mine and it’s not yours.”
Styles, of course, has attracted much attention for wearing traditionally feminine clothing on stage and the red carpet, but for him it’s all about “feeling comfortable with yourself” instead of adhering to antiquated notions of gender presentation.
“I think it’s a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, ‘Why not?’ a lot more,” Styles explained. “Which excites me. It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring.”
But is there a risk of Styles queerbaiting his fans like many male pop stars before him if he doesn’t publicly identify as LGBTQ? Not in his eyes.
“Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No,” Styles responded.
“I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool,” he continued. “And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”
Later in the interview, Styles touched on how he feels about the interest in his sexuality, adding that while he understands why an interviewer might bring up the topic, he hopes that “they respect they might not get an answer.”