David Archuleta came out publicly in June 2021, coincidentally during Pride Month. But at that time, David said he didn’t have a relationship to the event, since he was just trying to figure out how he fit into the LGBTQ community.

“I was engaged a few weeks before that,” he says of his coming-out statement. “And I had just broken it off because I was coming to terms with myself. … But even then, I was still afraid of Pride Month because it was scary to me. I didn’t know what it meant. … ‘Pride’ — does that mean being loud and in people’s faces? That’s not really my thing.'”

David says he now sees how valuable it is, giving people who “make all these assumptions of what queer people are like” an opportunity to “see a little bit into a world that they may normally just completely be disassociated with.”

“And I think it’s kind of nice to have a time to speak out,” he adds. “I tell people, like, ‘This has been difficult for me to come to terms with myself and I’m learning to love myself.’ And for me, that’s pride. I understand it now. I didn’t then.”

David’s new song, “Up,” is about his journey toward self-love as he reconciled his identity as a queer person with his Mormon faith. He says the song is “my way of showing my pride.” 

As he says, “I came from a very dark place and it was hard for me to get to this point. But I’m proud of how far I’ve come.”

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