Will Young was 'fuming' when his record label asked him to kiss George Michael at the BRIT Awards

Will Young has candidly spoken out about the publicity stunts that his record label used to ask him to pull at the beginning of his career, revealing that he was left seething when he was requested to kiss George Michael at the BRIT Awards.

Will first found fame when he won Pop Idol in 2002, coming out as gay soon after the TV show aired.

Shortly afterwards, Britney Spears and Madonna hit the headlines when they shared a kiss at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003, with Will now admitting that his record label wanted him to do the same with fellow gay pop star George.

Speaking in his new podcast ‘Homo Sapiens’, Will shared: “You know what I was really conscious of? People taking me as a gay man and bringing it just back to sex.

“Someone at the record company, to try to get me on the Brits, suggested, ‘Why don’t you do a duet with George Michael and then, like Britney and Madonna and Christina Aguilera and Madonna, you kiss at the end and we get our moment?’

“God that makes me angry.”

Will also confessed that he refused to kiss a man in the music video for his 2006 song ‘All Time Love’, although he now regrets the decision.

He said: “I remember years ago, I’d probably left T4 or something like that, and was off to a premiere, it was for the song ‘All Time Love’ and they said, ‘What do you feel about kissing a man on the lips in the video?’

“I actually rang up my mum and dad, and they were both like ‘Yeah, f**k it, do it’. But I didn’t do it, everyone agreed no, but actually that was only because I was thinking of my career.

“Do the maths – how many people want to see a man kiss a man, in comparison to how many people don’t? More people don’t. But now I slightly regret it.”

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