Green Day’s Billie Armstrong on Being Called A Bisexual Icon: “It’s F*cking Cool!”

Singer

2024-01-25
10:00

Green Day’s Billie Armstrong is happy and proud that he is being considered a bisexual icon.

The 51-year-old Green Day frontman first came out as bisexual in 1995, 29 years ago, in an interview with The Advocate. Since then, he has remained open, especially to his fans, about his queerness.

“I like it. I think it’s f*ckng cool that someone calls me a bisexual icon. I’ve seen that before. I’m like, ‘F*ck, yeah!’,” Armstrong told PEOPLE.

He also said that he is happy with how conversations about sexuality have grown and evolved three decades since he came out.

“Being a Gen X-er, I feel like there was a seed that got planted where it was the era in the ’90s that we came up, where men were discovering more of being with other men and being more bisexual, and coming out with that, whether it was someone like Kurt Cobain or what I was saying,” he said. “It’s way more complex now, as far as sexuality. You’re like, ‘Wow, we’ve really come a long way.’ Even though it’s still kind of looked at as being taboo, I think people now are a lot more brave than they’ve ever been. I think people are way more open now.”

Armstrong has been married to his wife, Adrienne, for 29 years. They have two sons, Joey (28 years old) and Jakob (25 years old). Because of his marriage, some have even questioned whether he is actually bisexual or just an ally.

“Sexuality is always so much more than what the standard, nuclear-family type of way of looking at things,” he explained. “But I have been married — there’s this other side of me that’s very conventional when it comes to my 30-year marriage to my wife. But I just look at sexuality: It’s not one way or the other. And if anybody ever tries to say that, I don’t think they’re really being honest with themselves.”

On January 19, the band released a new single titled “Bobby Sox”, a queer-inclusive anthem that Armstrong described as a “queer sing-along.”