Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds opens up about his LGBTQ activism and the hate he receives for making “so many kids gay”

17th November 2018

The singer said that he receives messages from the right saying they’ve banned their children from attending his concerts.

Dan Reynolds, the lead vocalist for Imagine Dragons, has opened up in an interview with Vulture about his LGBTQ activism as well as the barrage of criticism he faces from right-wing parents because of his vocal support of the LGBTQ community.

Speaking about his activism, and his funding of LoveLoud, Reynolds said: “Going into this, I knew there would be people on the far right who were going to be upset.

“People tell me they won’t allow their kids to go to my concerts anymore; that when I get to heaven, God’s going to be upset with me because I made so many kids gay.”

However, Reynolds also revealed that he has critics on the left wing as well. “And there’s also going to be people on the far left who are upset,” he explained.

“Because, who the fuck am I, mister white privileged guy. And I get it, but for me, I have to speak my truth and what I believe is, when it comes to issues like this, everybody has to do their part.”

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Reynolds also opened up in the interview about teen-suicide within the LGBTQ community. “I have seen so much damage done to these families,” he said.

“I’ve met with so many parents who’ve lost kids to suicide. I have so much fire about it. I want change, and I know that I can help make change.”

Speaking about a recent concert Imagine Dragons played in Turkey, Reynolds opened about the lyrics of one of their songs seemed to help a young boy who was in the audience. “We just played in Turkey. You wanna say scary place to have people bring up rainbow flags?”

“There was a kid right in the front row, and we had this moment where I was looking at him, and he had glitter on his eyes, and he was just this really beautiful, beautiful individual, and I was singing ‘It’s Time,’ which has the lyric, ‘I’m never changing who I am.’

“And I’m looking at him and seeing him with tears in his eyes, and it made my eyes well up, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is so real for so many kids.’ Those are the moments when it’s all just noise to me. Because I’m on ground zero and things are happening.”

Reynolds acknowledged that his activism probably wasn’t going to change the Mormon Church’s views on homosexuality, something that he was massively critical of, but he felt that he had a “responsibility to speak to all these kids who listen to Imagine Dragons, and there are so many of them, all these families come to our shows, and to slowly just speak this truth of mine. And whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter, it’s my truth.”