Dylan Holloway recalls former managers telling him to say he’s bisexual so he could ‘flirt with everyone’. (Supplied)
Singer-songwriter Dylan Holloway has claimed he was advised to lie about his sexual orientation before and during his time on Britain’s The X Factor.
The musician was part of hip-hop duo MK1 during season nine of the singing contest in 2012, and made it to the live finals.
While he has since come out as a straight, trans man, and now performs indie-pop music under the moniker Dylan and the Moon, he identified as a lesbian until then.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews, the singer, who drops new single “Bones” on Friday (16 August), reveals his “icky” experience of being told he should pretend to be bisexual, so as not to “alienate” potential fans.
“I’ve only ever been into women and my management team knew that, everyone around me knew that,” says Holloway, who moved from Cornwall to London to pursue his singing career, at the age of 17.
“But I was told [by my management at the time]: ‘Just say you’re bisexual because you don’t want to cut off any demographic or alienate new fans and be pigeonholed into this queer artist thing.”
Holloway recalls voicing his opposition to the suggestion but feeling “pressured”. He claims he was told: “You don’t have to marry a man, you just say you’re bisexual.”
He alleges he was told that labelling himself bisexual would allow him to “flirt with everyone, be open and be free” with fans who came to his shows.
“Now I look back and it feels icky,” Holloway says.
While the suggestion to refer to himself as bisexual rather than a lesbian was originally put forward by his management team, he claims that some team members behind the scenes at The X Factor encouraged him to stick with it.
“I just remember the feeling on The X Factor that that was a better decision. I can’t say that all the producers and all the team told me [to say I was bisexual] but it was just that, ‘Keep it ambiguous’, those sort of passing comments like, ‘Yes, this feels like a good thing for you to do’”.
The X Factor production company Fremantle did not respond to PinkNews’ request for a comment.
Last week, Holloway’s music garnered press attention for duets he has been creating, featuring him and his former, pre-transition alias, Lots Holloway.
Media coverage referred to Holloway as bisexual, with one publication stating that he had a boyfriend while on The X Factor. He says it’s likely that this is because he felt pressured during previous interviews to say that. But, after a while, he rejected that pressure.
“I had a girlfriend at the time and we’d been together for two years and we stayed together for another four. I was very gay when I presented as a woman. I’ve only ever been into women and only had girlfriends since,” he says.
“That only lasted for a few interviews until I just got bored and was like, ‘Oh f**k it. It’s just not true’. Since then, I made a pledge to myself to be as authentic as possible, and never let that happen again.”
Dylan and the Moon’s new manager is queer, and the singer only surrounds himself with people who allow him to be himself. In addition, he thinks the music industry has changed for the better.
The singer has found new fans since coming out as trans, and even more since he began posting his Lots Holloway collaborations.
“It’s probably one of the greatest decisions I ever made to make these duets because it has allowed me to look at my past self with this like adoration,” he says. “You were the person, the brave, solid, resilient person, [who] brought me to be the person I am now.”
He hopes to inspire more trans people to reject the “pressure” they feel to “become someone new and not talk about the past”.
Dylan and the Moon’s new single “Bones” is out now, and an EP is due to be released in October.