Today, she is more than happy to expand on her fluidity – in fact, she answers questions that I don’t even ask. “What I believe about sexuality is this: it’s a scale,” she says. “Have I gone out with girls before? Yes. Have I dated girls? Yes, I have. And famous ones, but I’m not naming them. Even though people would be living for it – no!” We both laugh. “Have I fallen in love with a girl before? Yes,” she continues. “But right now, I’m in a relationship with a guy.”
Rexha says that for her, attraction is simply based on “whoever inspires me” at a particular time. “The only thing I will say,” she adds, “is that when I’m in a relationship with a girl, it’s just too emotional. The power… I personally cannot deal with that.” She says she fully understands why some people prefer to label themselves “gay”, “bi” or “straight”; but for her, understanding who she is drawn to romantically has been more of a journey. “It’s just so hard because everybody wants to put people in boxes and I don’t like boxes, as you can tell with my music,” she says. “Like, I don’t like boxes whatsoever.”
Rexha says she saw her music being embraced by LGBTQ fans even before she launched her solo career: the “emo gays” got her from the start. Before she signed her solo deal in 2013, Rexha spent two years as a member of Black Cards, Pete Wentz’s post-Fall Out Boy project, and cut her teeth on the punky Warped Tour. “I would sometimes spend three hours after the show at the merch table – even if people didn’t buy anything, I’d be talking to them and hugging them,” she recalls. “This was a long time before Covid, of course! But I can’t tell you how many people told me that they came out to their parents and got kicked out and saved up all their money to come to that tour.”
These coming out stories clearly had a lasting effect on Rexha. “I’ve had friends who had a relatively easy coming out – my best friend, he doesn’t give a fuck, everybody knew from the top [that he was gay] and didn’t even ask him,” she says. “But I’ve also had friends who tried to tell their parents and they didn’t really get it, and I can’t imagine what that is like.” She says her music’s ability to comfort queer fans came as a surprise. “Like, I didn’t realise my music could do that, that it actually could give people strength,” she says.
Rexha has given other fans strength by being open about her mental health journey. In April 2019, she revealed on Twitter that she has bipolar disorder. Today, she says it took “a minute” to figure out how to manage her condition, but believes she’s in a good place now. “I don’t wanna get into [specific] pills because I feel like that’s too personal,” she says. “But finally, I was able to get on some meds that really help me.” When I ask whether it felt good to go public about it in 2019, she resists giving a bland, pat answer. “Um… kind of,” Rexha says after a pause. “Because I feel like there’s still a lot of stigma behind it. I didn’t know if people were still gonna want to be my friend.” She says that in the past, she had a friend with a mental health condition and wasn’t as supportive as she could have been. “I kind of judged him a little bit, and I feel guilty about that now,” she admits. “It’s funny how the world works. But because of that, I was scared that people might judge me for it.”
She says she ultimately decided to share her diagnosis partly because it was freeing, and partly because she had drawn strength from learning that fellow singers Demi Lovato and Mariah Carey also have bipolar disorder. “Mariah is a fucking beast – she has written all of her own songs,” she says. “To be able to do that, and be so successful even though you have your issues or whatever, that is so inspiring.”
After spending some time with Rexha, it’s hard not to reach the conclusion that her candour, work ethic and commitment to being authentically herself is also pretty inspiring. Fittingly enough, when I ask what she wants people to think when they hear her name, she gives a one-word answer: “Unapologetic.”
Bebe Rexha’s new album Better Mistakes is available to stream and download from 7 May.
