Frank Ocean holds out his microphone to the crowd while performing at Coachella 2012. (Wikimedia Commons)
By Tomika Anderson, Special to CNN
(CNN) – R&B singer and hip-hop artist Frank Ocean is the latest celebrity to open up about his sexuality, revealing to fans in a post on his Tumblr that his first love was a man.
The 24-year-old singer, who is also a member of the rap collective Odd Future, indicated that he’d originally intended to tell fans in the liner notes of his upcoming album, “Channel Orange,” but as rumors began to swirl he put a post on his Tumblr page instead.
“4 summers ago, I met somebody,” the singer wrote, referencing chatter that some of the love songs on his new album are about a man. “I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Every day almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile.”
Ocean continued, “Sleep I would often share with him … By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating to the women I had been with, the ones I cared for and thought I was in love with.”
Ocean also expressed pain that the man he had feelings for “wouldn’t tell the truth about his feelings for me for another 3 years.” He indicated that he kept the friendship going even as he struggled with their relationship.
Now, he said, he’s free.
“I don’t have any secrets I need kept anymore … I was never alone, as much as it felt like it,” he wrote. “As much as I still do sometimes. I never was. I don’t think I ever could be. Thanks. To my first love, I’m grateful for you.”
