And now for news so shocking it will shatter your Earth: “I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I’m gay,” Adam Lambert says in the new issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, hitting newsstands this Friday, June 12.

The singer, who also just announced a new record deal, says he felt that coming out as gay would have affected the positive reaction he received as a contestant on American Idol. He says: “I was worried that [coming out] would be so sensationalized that it would overshadow what I was there to do, which was sing. I’m an entertainer, and who I am and what I do in my personal life is a separate thing. It shouldn’t matter.”

“I didn’t want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bullshit. I need to be able to explain myself in context,” 27-year-old Adam tells the magazine. “I’m proud of my sexuality,” he says. “I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.”

“Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, ‘I’m going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,’” he explains.