Chris Martin Opens Up About Wondering if He Was Gay & Getting Past Homophobia (Video)

Chris Martin is opening up in a Rolling Stone interview presented by Dodge with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner.

Here’s what the Coldplay frontman had to say…

On taking the name Coldplay from a friend: “My good friend Tim who was in a band and would go through band names very very fast and he would discard them and Coldplay we picked up from him.”

On his boarding school experience, wondering if he might be gay, and getting past homophobia: “When I went to boarding school I walked a bit funny and I bounced a bit and I was also very homophobic because I was like, ‘If I’m gay, I’m completely f–ked for eternity’ and I was a kid discovering sexuality. ‘Maybe I’m gay, maybe I’m this, maybe I’m that, I can’t be this’ so I was terrified and then I walked a bit funny and I was in a boarding school with a bunch of quite hardcore kids who were also gone for their thing and, for a few years, they would very much say, ‘You’re definitely gay,’ in quite a full-on manner, quite aggressively telling me that and it was weird for me for a few years…I don’t know and even if I am, I can’t be because it’s wrong… If I am, I can’t be so that was creating a terrible turmoil…I start to worry about it for sure. About 15 and a half, I don’t know what happened, I was like, ‘Yeah so what?’ and then it all just stopped overnight. It was very interesting. Once I was like, ‘Yeah, so what if I’m gay.’”

On whether worry or the kids eventually stopped: “The worry and anyone teasing you and…I don’t know what it was. I really don’t remember. Just growing up a bit and having a bit more exposure to the world thinking, ‘A lot of my heroes are gay’ or whatever. Whatever they are, it doesn’t really matter. So what that did was ease a big pressure and then made me question, ‘Hey maybe some of this stuff that I’m learning about God and everything — I’m not sure if I subscribe to all of this particular religion’… So for a few years, that was a bit wobbly and then eventually I just was like, ‘Okay, I think I have my own relationship with what I think God is and it’s not really any one religion for me.’”

For more from Chris, head to RollingStone.com.