New Rolling Stone Magazine Features Adam Lambert Cover Story

American Idol’s glamtastic runner-up Adam Lambert opens up in the next issue of Rolling Stone, speaking frankly about his sexuality, though he doesn’t think his revelation is particularly shocking.

“I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I’m gay,” Lambert says in the new issue of Rolling Stone, hitting newsstands this week. (Click here to check out exclusive video of his cover shoot).

The flamboyant Idol singer hits our cover and bares all, talking about his childhood (”I started to realize I wasn’t like every other boy,” he says), the drug-fueled Burning Man epiphany that led him to AI (”I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen,” he tells RS) and his run on the show (”I was like, ‘I’m going to glue rhinestones on my eyelids, bitch!’ “). And yes, he talks about his sexuality. “Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, ‘I’m going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler,’ ” he tells us. “I didn’t want the Clay Aiken thing and the celebrity-magazine bullshit. I need to be able to explain myself in context.

“I’m proud of my sexuality,” Lambert adds. “I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” Ultimately, however Lambert tells RS contributor Vanessa Grigoriadis that there are other parts of his life that he’s trying to keep front and center. “I’m trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader,” he says.

It was that mission — and his Burning Man “psychedelic experience” — that lead him to Idol after years in musical theater. “I knew that it was my only shot to be taken seriously in the recording industry, because it’s fast and broad,” he tells RS. (See photos of Lambert’s remarkable American Idol run here.)

He details his experience on Idol, his true thoughts on winner Kris Allen and how his sexuality impacted his Idol run in our cover story, “Wild Idol: The Psychedelic Transformation and Sexual Liberation of Adam Lambert,” which hits newsstands this week.

Some excerpts from the interview:

"Right after the finale, I almost started talking about it to the reporters, but I thought, 'I'm going to wait for Rolling Stone, that will be cooler.'

"They put me with the cute guy. Distracting! He's the one guy I found attractive in the whole group on the show: nice, nonchalant, pretty and totally my type — except that he has a wife. I mean he's open-minded and liberal, but he's definitely 100% straight."

"I loved it this season when the girls went crazy for me," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, it's all hot."

"I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader."

More photos and videos HERE.