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Clay Aiken Lost ‘50 Percent the Fan Base’ After Coming Out

He also claims “ticket sales dropped” for Spamalot afterwards.

When you’re truly reflecting back on 2008, like thinking about the days when you would spend hours calling into American Idol while reblogging GIFS on Tumblr, it feels like living in another timeline— neither of these things exist in their original form anymore! No one feels the decades-long difference more than American Idol season two finalist Clay Aiken, who skyrocketed to fame after his time on the show, but lost a huge portion of his fanbase, the claymates, when he came out as gay after the birth of his son. In a retrospective interview with People, Clay Aiken looked back on his coming out cover story from 2008, where he claims he lost “50 perfect of [his] fan base,” resulting in a drop in ticket sales for Spamalot on Broadway.

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