Clay Aiken On Romantic Relationships: I Don't Have Any Desire

The Happy Hickster (New York Magazine)

“Let’s not fool ourselves,” he says with his eyebrows up in his arch, queeny way. “The truth is? There are people like Justin Timberlake, males who are cool on radio right now, and then there’s me. If I heard myself in a dance club? If I went into a dance club—which I never do—and I heard Clay Aiken come on, I’d roll my eyes and get out. But you know what? I’m fine with being kind of vanilla! It’s oh-kye!” In his book, Aiken says that it’s not just clubs but also bars he dislikes: “The only reason people go to bars is to get drunk and have sex. To me, bars are what hell is like.”

He imagines his social life here will be “nonexistent, really. I’m not a nighttime person.” He does not plan on dating, and he is not involved with anyone. “Heck, no,” he says. “My dogs.” He has never had a romantic relationship with anyone, unless you count the girls he took to dances back in high school in Raleigh. “I just don’t have an interest in … any of that at all. I have got too much on my plate,” he says. “I’d rather focus on one thing and do that when I can devote time to it, and right now, I just don’t have any desire.”