Scott Mills remembers being pressured into coming out early by a tabloid: ‘I told my story before they did it’ (EXCLUSIVE)
The presenter looked back on the early 2000s while discussing how much the industry has changed for LGBTQ+ people
By Callum Wells
Scott Mills has reflected on the pressure he felt to publicly come out at the start of his career, telling Attitude he chose to speak openly before a tabloid could make his sexuality a headline.
The presenter – who said being included on this year’s Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley, feels “mad” after growing up reading the magazine – looked back on the early 2000s while discussing how much the industry has changed for LGBTQ+ people since he first joined BBC Radio 1.
“I remember in 2001, I had to do an interview with a magazine basically before the tabloids outed me,” Mills said on the red carpet. “It was about to happen to me, but then I got in and I did a big old ‘I’m gay’ interview with a magazine called SKY, which is not around anymore. But I was advised by Radio 1 to do that interview to say it before they put it out. It was when I was brand new on Radio 1, but how mad is that to think of now?”
“We got them. I told my story before they did it” – Scott Mills on coming out before a tabloid could out him
The broadcaster explained that after being informed that journalists were already preparing to run the story while he was still in his early 20s and new to the spotlight.
“Well, I just heard… I heard that they had the story. Not that it’s a story, but it was a story then. I mean, it was going to be like, ‘New Radio 1 DJ is gay.’ That’s it,” he said. “I don’t think they were planning to dig up anything because there was nothing really to dig. But that in itself back then was a headline and I was a new Radio 1 DJ, obviously, because you… I’d never had press before. I was in my early 20s.”
Mills added that the station’s publicity team encouraged him to speak first. “So the Radio 1 publicist just said, ‘Let’s do this magazine article now to take this thing out of it.’ And to be fair, it did. Well, we got them. I told my story before they did it.”
“How mad that that’s a front page news story back then. Horrible, horrible stuff” – Mills on 00s media culture surrounding sexuality
Reflecting on that period now, he described the media culture surrounding sexuality at the time as hard to comprehend today, adding, “How mad that that’s a front page news story back then. Horrible, horrible stuff.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Mills pointed to the huge cultural shift he has witnessed during his career, including how audiences now react to seeing him and his husband on BBC One’s Race Across The World. “When you do a show I did a year ago, a mainstream BBC One show with my husband… you get husband and wives in their 60s coming up to you in the street going, ‘Good for you, lads,'” he said. “You get old, like really old ladies going, ‘I loved you and your husband.’ That would not have happened 20 years ago.”
“There is this acceptance that was not there when I was growing up,” he added. “I remember even when they had like, the first gay kiss on EastEnders, that was like, hugely shocking. And now it just feels like even with the older generation, it’s not a thing. It’s perfectly like, ‘Oh, okay, they’re married.’ And that is a huge shift.”
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