Clay Aiken shares SPAMALOT sales plummeted after coming out as gay in 2008

Clay Aiken, the singer and actor who got his start on American Idol before going on to perform on Broadway, opens up about how his life and career changed after coming out as gay in 2008. Aiken chatted with People in a new interview, the same publication where he chose to publicize his coming out with a cover story that ran in September 2008.

Aiken shared that after the cover was published, he lost “50 percent” of his fan base.

“Back then it was a big deal,” he said, talking about how the public’s reception of celebrities coming out has changed drastically in 16 years. “We are in a very different time.”

At the time he came out, Aiken was starring on Broadway in Spamalot, and he said ticket sales dropped after his bombshell People cover hit the newsstands.

“The first four months I was in, the show was sold out, standing room only. You can actually look at the ticket sales the week after the cover came out,” he says. “It went from selling very well until the week after the cover came out, ticket sales dropped. Spamalot ended up shutting down a few months after that.”

BroadwayWorld’s gross report shows that the production went from grossing $642,920 and selling at 82% capacity in the week ending August 31, 2008, to $318,167 and 41% the following week.

However, Aiken said he doesn’t regret his decision and is glad the world has changed since then.

“There is progress and that means we as a country are moving in the right direction,” he said.

Read on for the original story People.

Clay Aiken most recently returned to Broadway in 2018 in “Ruben & Clay’s 1st Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show,” ten years after his critically acclaimed debut in Monty Python’s Spamalot. On the heels of “American Idol,” he became the first artist in history to have his first single debut at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. His subsequent album, “Measure of A Man”, also debuted at No. 1 with the highest first-week sales by a debut artist.

His 2004 Christmas release, “Merry Christmas with Love,” set the record for the fastest-selling holiday album of the SoundScan era and remains tied for the highest chart debut of a holiday album in Billboard history. He served 9 years as a UNICEF Ambassador and in 2003 co-founded with Diane Bubel what is now the National Inclusion Project to promote and increase opportunities for children with disabilities to be included in recreational activities (such as summer camps and after-school ) with their non-disabled peers.

His new Christmas album, ‘Christmas Bells are Ringing’, was released on 22 November.