Frank Ocean Reflects On This Summer’s Revelation With GQ

As the world awaits the inevitable — Frank Ocean scoring major Grammy nominations come Dec. 5 when they’re announced — GQ has an interesting new Q&A about the rising singer-songwriter. In Ocean’s back and forth, he reflects on the now infamous revelation about his love life made earlier this summer, and refuses to peg himself in terms of his sexuality when prompted.

Excerpts below:

GQ: Let’s talk about your open letter on Tumblr. Posting that must’ve felt like the hardest way.
Frank Ocean: Yes, absolutely.

GQ: So why did you do it? Were some people raising questions about the male pronouns in a few of the songs?
Frank Ocean: I had Skyped into a listening session that Def Jam was hosting for Channel Orange, and one of the journalists, very harmlessly—quotation gestures in the air, “very harmlessly”—wrote a piece and mentioned that. I was just like, “Fuck it. Talk about it, don’t talk about it—talk about this.” No more mystery. Through with that.

GQ: You’d written the letter back in December, for inclusion in the liner notes. Were you afraid of the aftermath when you finally posted it in July?
Frank Ocean: The night I posted it, I cried like a fucking baby. It was like all the frequency just clicked to a change in my head. All the receptors were now receiving a different signal, and I was happy. I hadn’t been happy in so long. I’ve been sad again since, but it’s a totally different take on sad. There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.