‘I got outed’: Pop-R&B superstar Khalid announces his sexuality

Khalid, 26, has had a string of smash hit singles over the past eight years, including Love Lies, Young Dumb & Broke and Eastside.

In the first of a series of posts to X today, Khalid tweeted a rainbow flag emoji, writing: “there yall go. next topic please lol.”

Responding to one person who asked if the tweet meant he was gay, he wrote: “I am! And that’s okay.”

In another follow-up, he gave a little more context, revealing an unfortunate backstory behind the announcement.

“I got outted and the world still continues to turn. Let’s get this straight (lmao) I am not ashamed of my sexuality! In reality it ain’t nobodies business! But I am okay with me. love yall,” he wrote.

The “outing” Khalid refers to appears to be a flurry of social media posts today by openly gay internet personality Hugo Almonte, who shared a photo of the pair together with the caption: “Bitch ass lied and said that I broke into his house cause I didn’t want him.”

That tweet had followed a series of other posts from Almone alluding to sexual encounters with a “gay R&B singer.”

Almonte’s post provoked an immediate negative reaction on social media.

“I hate when people OUT someone just because yall broke up! that’s NASTY,” one person wrote, while another replied that “exposing someone is never cute.”

“You’re actually weird for this and absolutely nobody is on your side,” said another person.

Despite the outing, Khalid told another fan today he wasn’t really in the closet, he just chose not to talk about his private life.

“I wasn’t hiding anything! It’s just not any of your business,” he wrote.

Since debuting with the single Location in 2016 when he was 18, Khalid has been a hugely successful singles artist – particularly here in Australia, where more than 20 of his singles and collaborations have gone platinum, some many times over.
Two of his high-profile collaborations – 2018’s Billie Eilish duet Lovely and Benny Blanco feature Eastside – have both gone 11 x platinum each on the ARIA charts, making them among the best-selling songs of all time in Australia with sales of more than 750,000 each.