Adam Lambert used to pile on the pounds when he was younger, but weight loss in later years elevated his confidence to be the flashy glam rock star that he is now. The finalist of “American Idol” said that his sweltering performance at the American Music Awards reflects the issues he had to overcome as a young man.
“I suffered from a little bit of an ugly-duckling complex in my early 20s. When I was in high school I was 250 pounds and that creates some stuff … some body image stuff, some confidence issues. And I got a lot of my confidence from the validation I got as a performer,” he said during a radio show interview with Larry Flick.
But Lambert acknowledged that his sultry performance at the AMA did not create a good first impression. He now looks back, admitting that he shouldn’t have pushed it too far.
“I think in hindsight I look back on it and I go, OK, maybe that wasn’t the best first impression to make again,” he told Ellen DeGeneres during his show appearance, which aired on Tuesday.
ABC, who televised the AMAs, received complaints on the performance of Lambert. The act backfired, resulting to the cancellation of Lambert’s appearance on “Good Morning America”. But Lambert humbly accepted the decision of the show.
“I don’t blame them. I got carried away. It was stuff that I did not do in rehearsal, so they were probably a little bit taken aback,” the singer said. “They gave me a great opportunity to close the AMAs and I would never want to smack that gift horse in the mouth. I think they were taking a leap of faith having me do that, and it unfortunately it didn’t work out as we all thought it would.”
