I’m Yours hitmaker Jason Mraz said he didn’t want to be the ‘punchline of a joke’ in the 90s if he came out.
The Grammy winning artist, 48, came out as bisexual in 2018 after admitting he had ‘experiences with men’ while he was dating his ex-wife Christina Carano.
Now the I Won’t Give Up singer has opened up further about his relationship with his sexuality and the difficulties he has faced embracing his true self in a new interview
‘In the 90s, being gay was like [the] punchline of a joke and I didn’t want to be the punchline of a joke,’ he explained.
‘[I] kept my nose down and figured out ways I could instead get out and see the world one day.’
But growing up in Mechanicsville, Virginia (a Republican-voting state throughout the 1990s) fuelled his fear of coming out even after he left home.
On Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, Jason continued: ‘I still took with me the conservative street that I grew up on, and that was very hard to ignore or to break out of
‘I was very shy and and scared of what my family would say, or what my hometown would think or just whatever.’
Although he added that his ‘parents are very supportive’.
The guitarist, who divorced Christina in 2023, also called himself a ‘late bloomer’ and said his ‘life is just starting’.
‘I can’t say that I have found love yet,’ he shared.
‘I have been in amazing relationships and I’ve always learned and grown and hopefully I don’t have bad karma woven through those relationships but I love where I am and I feel so much love for myself finally that can only enhance the next relationship or yeah or a relationship when I find one.’
And he also shared an appreciation for ‘short relationships’.
‘They can end well, and many of mine have ended so well that it leaves me filled with hope that I can continue to have meaningful, loving relationships,’ he concluded.
The singer, who was also married for just one year in 2000, rose to notoriety after he released his debut album Waiting for My Rocket to Come in October 2002.
His lead single, The Remedy (I Won’t Worry), peaked at number 15 in the Billboard Hot 100.
His 2008 hit I’m Yours, from his third album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things, launched him into international acclaim and spent a record-breaking 76 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
He previously told Metro.co.uk that he wrote the hit song in around ’20 or 30 minutes’
‘It all happened so quickly,’ he said at the time.
‘I write a lot of songs quickly, record them and put them away. I never thought much about it.
‘It couldn’t have taken more than 20 or 30 minutes. It just popped out; I never second guessed the lyrics. I thought maybe it was just a children’s song, but it obviously spoke to the child in all of us.’
He released his latest album, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, in June 2023.
At the tail end of last year the Songwriters Hall of Fame honouree appeared in season 32 of Dancing with The Stars where he placed second with his partner Daniella Karagach.
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