NKOTB Singer Jonathan Knight Reflects on Pressure to Hide Sexuality

The New Kids on the Block member felt forced to keep quiet about his sexuality early in his career.

New Kids on the Block bandmate Jonathan Knight is opening up about having to suppress his sexuality during the height of his career.

The singer, now 54, is openly gay and married to husband Harley Rodriguez, but during his early career years, he didn't think it was an option for him to be "out."

The recent home reno star sat down with Lance Bass for his Frosted Tips with Lance Bass podcast, where he opened up about feeling forced to be secretive about his sexuality.

Knight revealed that his manager knew he was gay at the time, but that he didn't feel it would be smart to reveal it to the world. "He pulled me aside and was like, ‘If anybody finds out, your career is over. The New Kids’ career is over. My career is over. It was just so much pressure,” he told Bass, per Just Jared. “Looking back, that was a lot of pressure to put on somebody who’s just trying to figure out the world themselves. As it went along, the stress built up and built up and built up.”

Ultimately, Knight would be the first member of the band to leave in 1994. “Pop music was just not what it used to be and you know we went from arenas down to theaters and then eventually I left the New Kids and they continued on and they were doing nightclubs. And it just kept going down and down but I had jumped out early," he explained. "...being a young gay kid, I was frustrated and wanted to get on with my own life. The other reason, it just felt like it was not going anywhere and I just wanted to be home.”

Not long after, the band broke up altogether, though they reunited in 2008. Shortly thereafter, an ex-boyfriend of Knight's outed him without his knowledge. “It was a boyfriend of mine that sold pictures of us to the National Enquirer," he shared.

Even after that, he didn't feel the need to speak on it. “I didn’t want to. I was just living my life… it wasn’t something I was hiding. But then it was like, ‘No, you have to make a statement. You have to clear the air.’ And that whole process was horrible.”

Knight went on to appreciate how times have changed since then. “People will be doing an award show and just be like ‘I’d like to thank my husband blah blah blah…’ and nobody flinches.”