The singer is opening up about keeping some things to himself.
Harry Styles is opening up about why he doesn't want to open up. Specifically, the 28-year-old "As It Was" singer is reflecting on how and why he's compartmentalized his work life and his private life.
"I’ve never talked about my life away from work publicly, and found that it’s benefited me positively," the GRAMMY-winning singer tells Rolling Stone in a new profile interview. "There’s always going to be a version of a narrative, and I think I just decided I wasn’t going to spend the time trying to correct it or redirect it in some way."
One element of his life that always seems to be in the spotlight is his love life, and ongoing questions about his sexuality. While Styles has been boldly gender-fluid in his fashion and stage styles, he's never definitively addressed his sexuality, and doesn't feel he needs do.
"Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women,’ and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone," Styles said. "If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something."
That being said, Styles has been fairly upfront recently in his romance with Olivia Wilde. The musician and the actress began their relationship in 2020 -- following the making of Don't Worry Darling -- and have been on the receiving end of scrutiny from "Harries" who have questioned the 10-year age gap in their relationship, and created Twitter and TikTok videos debunking the validity of their romance.
For Styles, this has been a painful reminder of how he is essentially forced to live life in public, even when it's a personal matter.
"It’s obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you’re at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something," Styles shared. "I just wanted to sing. I didn’t want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that."
According to Styles, there is someone he opens up to about his struggle to find balance and live a normal life, and that's his therapist.
"I committed to doing it once a week," he shared. "I felt like I exercise every day and take care of my body, so why wouldn’t I do that with my mind?...So many of your emotions are so foreign before you start analyzing them properly. I like to really lean into [an emotion] and look at it in the face. Not like, 'I don’t want to feel like this,' but more like, 'What is it that makes me feel this way?'"
Styles also admitted that there is a split between his on-stage persona and the way he lives and interacts with the people closest to him in his personal life.
"When I’m working, I work really hard, and I think I’m really professional," the "Watermelon Sugar" singer says. "Then when I’m not, I’m not. I’d like to think I’m open, and probably quite stubborn, too, and willing to be vulnerable. I can be selfish sometimes, but I’d like to think that I’m a caring person."
Rolling Stone's first-ever global issue is on newsstands Sept 6.
For more on Styles, see the video below.
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