David Archuleta is 35. When he was 17, half a life ago, he competed on season 7 of American Idol and won the hearts of million. But while viewers thought they were watching a composed teenager, that was far from the truth.
“I was absolutely terrified on Idol,” Archuleta reveals to Rolling Stone in an hour-long conversation about his first book, Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself, out Tuesday, Feb. 17.
“I had never admitted to myself that I had feelings for guys. I acknowledged that there was something wrong with me when I was 12. People would tell me that boys who like boys are bad, and girls who like girls are bad. That’s why I started praying about it. The first time I had feelings for a boy was when I was in second grade and I talk about that in the book. From that point on, I felt the need to hide.”
Archuleta was a high school student when he was named the runner-up of Idol‘s seventh season in 2008. (David Cook was crowned champ that year.)
“I was known as the quiet shy boy who smiled and never said anything. I had been bullied when I was younger for being a sissy and being feminine. So, I didn’t want to be looked at. On American Idol, I was worn out from constantly being afraid and constantly feeling like I had to have my guard up. I couldn’t sing my song and then leave,” he says. “They were filming me. They wanted to know about me, and my mannerisms were exposed.”
It was a conflict for the young performer, who wanted to sing and share himself with the world but feared he would be rejected if people found out he was queer. “I didn’t like myself. Luckily, the producers liked me. They wanted me to do well and they portrayed me as this happy, sweet boy-next-door — I tried my best to be that,” he says. “I was a sheltered Mormon kid who grew up in Utah and was home-schooled a lot of his life and was socially awkward. People found that endearing.”
At the same time, Archuleta was developing a huge fan base from his performances on Idol, including many LGBTQ+ viewers. “I didn’t understand why. After I came out [in June 2021], a lot of people told me I was their ‘gay awakening.’ It was the first time they realized they were attracted to men,” he says. “I was in so much denial on Idol and yet I was the representation of a queer young teenager on national television struggling to figure out who he was.”
Archuleta first thought about writing a memoir shortly after he came out publicly. (He came out privately to his family seven years earlier.) “I realized I was in a position where I could tell my story and shed more light. At the time, I was still going to church. So I thought, what can I say to help people in my church community know that there were people like me here,” he says. “I had never realized that there were queer people in the Mormon church until I came out. Five people in my own congregation wrote me directly and said, ‘I’m like you.’”
In his early days of coming out, Archuleta felt too embarrassed to attend church with his own congregation, so he found another place for services. “There was a grown man, and I knew one of his kids, who was already an adult. I left early because I felt uncomfortable mingling with everyone. This man chased me down and said, ‘Brother Archuleta, I am like you.’ I could see the desperation in his eyes and he said, ‘I can’t tell you how hard it has been,’ and I realized people like him were hiding because the church doesn’t want to admit that there are people in their congregations having a hard time. I thought, ‘Someone needs to say something about this,’” Archuleta says. “In my book, I talk about someone coming up to me in an airport while I was on tour. He asked me, ‘How did you come out?’ I asked him, ‘Have you been having suicidal thoughts?’ and he said, ‘I’ve been having them for the last month.’”
Archuleta experienced his own suicidal ideation before he came out. He considered himself a “corrupt product” and compared himself to a broken toy. “I just couldn’t see myself any other way,” he says. “I asked myself which is better, ending my life or possibly being gay. There was a moment where I thought if I take my life, I might still have a chance at redemption.”
The young man from Murray, Utah, was at peace with the decision to end his life. He wrote a note to his family about who should inherit his possessions. He scouted locations that might be good places to commit suicide. “My church always said it’s not about this life. It’s about eternity. So why would it be worth accepting myself in this life if it meant costing my soul for eternity?” Archuleta says. “A lot of people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints get to that point where they think, ‘I will give up my life here so I can possibly be saved in the next life.’”
But then he wondered, what if that isn’t true? “How do you know?” Archuleta says. “Because Joseph Smith said it? He could’ve made it up and all these people have given up their lives for well-told fantasy tales in the Book of Mormon.’”
Archuleta recalls once dropping to his knees and praying for God to make him straight. In that moment, the singer says he received a message from God telling him that “there’s nothing to change.”
“It was not the answer I was expecting to get after 17 years of praying about it. I decided to trust that,” he says. “My church did a great job teaching me that you can have your own personal revelations from God. So I felt that was an inspired divine moment that I had with the grand creator of whatever has brought all this into existence. I felt seen for the first time.”
According to Archuleta, Devout also details how he gave up too much of his will and choice to others. “I was toxically co-dependent on so many people. With my dad, with other family members, with my management, with producers and with my church. It was time for me to live my life. It’s been freeing and I feel confident in my body and with myself for the first time,” he says. “It took me until my 30s to get there and I know a lot of queer people relate to that.”
There came a point after his public coming out when Archuleta left the Church of Latter-Day Saints. His mother left as well, telling her son, “If you’re going to hell, we’re going to hell together,” which inspired his song “Hell Together.”
The process of leaving the church did not happen immediately. “I was close with the church leaders. I worked alongside them. I served alongside them. They knew me. I knew them. I thought I could talk to them and if they knew the heartbreak and the struggle that we go through and the answers that we find with our relationship with God, when we accept ourselves, surely they will hear it because they’re seeking God’s light and God’s directions,” Archuleta says. “It was frustrating how resistant they were. I could tell the church leader I was closest to wanted to hear my story and then he completely ghosted me. When I left the church and talked about it, he finally reached out to me a year later and asked, ‘Why did you have to come out? Why did you have to do that publicly?’ I told him, ‘Because you didn’t hear me when I went through church channels.’ It was surprising after everything I’d done willingly and lovingly, how quickly they cast me aside because of being queer.”
Archuleta says he wasn’t trying to make his church look bad. Instead, he just wanted to be included.
“I wanted them to see us for who we really are and that there’s still a place for us to belong and to contribute and to be a part of the community and loved, instead of having to be abandoned and pushed out and then pointed at and judged at from the inside, saying, ‘Look at those evil people. They’re so miserable and unhappy because they chose to be gay and dark and sinful and perverted,’” he says. “We were miserable because our community abandoned us.”
The title of Archuleta’s book was suggested by his friend John Hoffman, co-creator and showrunner of the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building. “He told me, ‘When I hear your story, I think of ‘devout,’ because you were so devout to your church and people like your father and you wanted to please them,” Archuleta says. “You were so loyal to your beliefs and to God. I think of ‘devout’ and ‘out.’”
Archuleta also writes in Devout about his time on American Idol, including the night of the finale, when host Ryan Seacrest opened an envelope and said, “The winner of American Idol, by 12 million votes…is [short pause] David [another pause] Cook!”
“I was so exhausted by that point,” Archuleta tells Rolling Stone. “I was so drained, it was like a fever dream. I don’t think either of us had the energy to take in that moment. For me, it was finished. I could finally relax and not worry about being in front of everybody every week, being chased by paparazzi and being hounded about my stage dad. People dissed my dad to my face all the time in interviews, and I just had to take it with a smile on my face. But I was also so thankful that everyone believed in me, because I didn’t think I deserved it. I felt so unworthy to be there, because I had this belief in me for decades that no matter what I did, how much I accomplished, how much praise I received, I was unworthy of it and I didn’t deserve it because of the ‘dirtiness’ I had inside of me.
“When I was writing this book, I reacted the same way. I was disgusted. I cringed But then I thought, ‘Why are you so disgusted with yourself?’” Archuleta says. “I’ve learned to love that part of me and it was really healing…. As a 35-year-old, I can receive the success that 17-year-old David had and say, ‘Good job! I’m proud of you and you’ve made it this far. You almost chose to not be here and, gosh, I’m so glad that you did because a lot of people chose to take their life.’ Hopefully by sharing my story, less people will get to that point and choose to stay as well.”
Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself is published by Gallery Books. Archuleta will begin a seven-city book tour on Feb. 17 in New York. Each event will include a Q&A discussion as well as an autograph signing with the purchase of the book. In addition, David will also release a three-song EP of new music written specifically about themes in the book. The Devout EP is available only through the purchase of the audiobook, also released on Feb. 17.
