Adam Lambert: 'I'm a Performer, Not a Babysitter'
Nov. 25, 2009— -- Adam Lambert gave no apologies for his provocative performance and man-on-man kiss during last Sunday's "American Music Awards".
"I don't feel I owe anyone an apology for anything," Lambert told Ryan Seacrest yesterday on his radio show. "I performed, it was late night TV, I did something that female performers have been doing for years, no different. It's just the fact that I'm me and it's a little different for people. It's really not that big of a deal."
"I'm not a babysitter, I'm a performer," he added.
He reiterated his comment to CBS "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez when he appeared on the show this morning.
"I think it's up to the parents to discern what their child's watching on television," Lambert said.
Lambert said when he performed at close to 11 o'clock Sunday night, he looked out at the audience of mostly adults, including some of his favorite pop stars, and thought: "I want to let loose."
"It just kind of got the best of me. And I had a great time," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people upset, but I think there are also people who really enjoyed it. So, like 'Idol,' I guess I have a tendency to divide people -- apples and oranges -- you either like it or you don't."
Lambert said he had not planned to be so provocative but instead got carried away by the moment -- bringing a male dancer's face to his crotch and kissing his male keyboard player.
"Those kind of came from more of an impromptu place," he told Rodriguez. "No, those were not rehearsed. So I think ABC was taken a little by surprise. That wasn't my intention. I wasn't being sneaky. It got the most of me, I guess."
Lambert said he believed some of the outraged reaction stemmed from a double standard against gay males.
"If it had been a female pop performer ... I don't think there'd be nearly as much of an outrage at all," he said on the "Early Show."
Lambert has certainly come a long way from the once sexually ambiguous, aspiring "American Idol." If anything, his provocative AMA performance made clear: He's gay enough.
"It's great, he can be himself now," gossip columnist Perez Hilton told ABCNews.com. "He doesn't have to play it safe to get votes and, at the end of the day, it's all working. I applaud him for that performance. It was ballsy. It wasn't perfect, definitely not his best vocal. But I loved it. I loved it."
Lambert's AMA performance appeared to repudiate recent criticism from Out magazine editor Aaron Hicklin that the openly gay singer was not "gay enough."
Village Voice columnist Michael Musto told ABCNews.com, "Adam's gesture might have been a reaction to the 'not gay enough' criticism, but weren't there also lots of dancing women in his number? I think his marketing will always try to keep him out of the closet, yet with ambiguities his people will continue to sneak in there."
Lambert's trajectory from closeted "Idol" to openly gay AMA provocateur has not been without controversy.
Speculation was rampant about Lambert's sexuality during his run on "American Idol." But the singer refused to comment on his use of eyeliner or his declaration on a YouTube video that kissing girls was "not necessarily" his preference.
He did confirm that photos posted on the "American Idol"-mocking Web site votefortheworst.com, which depicted him dressed in drag and kissing another man, were real and taken at the Burning Man arts festival. "I have nothing to hide," he told "Access Hollywood."
"I am who I am. And this is about singing … nothing else."
That comment was made before Lambert was voted into "Idol's" top 12 and Fox cut off media access to him and his family. Lambert would have to wait until after his second-place finish to publicly come out on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, followed by his first television appearance on "20/20."
