David Archuleta looks back on coming out: 'Now it's a miracle that I embrace this part of me'

American Idol alum David Archuleta, who came in second to David Cook on the seventh season of the show, is very grateful for where he is more than a year after coming out.

"I feel like it's a miracle that I've gotten to this place where I am accepting myself," he told Out in an interview published this week. "I didn't think I ever could. I thought the only way that I could accept myself was if this part of me was gone and to get rid of it and praying that this part would no longer be associated with who I am. Now it's a miracle that I embrace this part of me and I love this part of me. I never had been able to say that I love myself."

Not that the path has been easy. For one thing, the singer is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he's had to balance his truth with his faith.

"Literally my purpose before was building up the kingdom of God and the greatest way do that was to marry a woman and have children with her," Archuleta, who's 31, told the magazine. "That was my ultimate goal for the first 30 years of my life. Now, I have to decide what it is as a queer person. I've been engaged three times. I bought three wedding rings for girls, but it felt dishonest."

He felt that he wasn't being his true self in other ways, too.

"The church could tell I was not being honest with them. Now that I'm being honest, the thing that [the church] taught me is backfiring. I just say I'm queer. I still don't know exactly where I am on the spectrum. I'm definitely more leaning towards guys. That's who I've been dating... are guys."

He revealed in a June 2021 post on social media that he was "not sure about my own sexuality" and that he "had similar feelings for both genders," so might be "a spectrum of bisexual."

Since sharing his feelings about his sexuality, Archuleta has found it "very difficult to write," because everything he had written previously was steeped in his spirituality. His latest song, the high energy "Faith in Me," reflects where he is after his intimate message to fans.

"I feel a lot more comfortable with myself. I've been able to sit with it for over a year now and explore that, and not judge myself so much for simply being the way that I am," he said. "It's been very freeing to do that, but it's also been difficult having to reidentify myself."

Archuleta released his latest studio album, Therapy Sessions, in 2020. In August 2021, he told Yahoo Entertainment that he chose that title because he was going through therapy himself while recording it.

"There was a lot of this frustration that was coming out that I guess I had never allowed to come forward," he said. "And I was now finally being able to take a look at was coming through and being put into the songs — kind of completing my therapy in a way, just by verbalizing the frustration."