X Factor winner Matt Terry has opened up about the homophobia he says he experienced behind the scenes of the hit UK talent show during his time competing in 2016.
The 32-year-old singer, who went on to win the thirteenth season of the ITV series, revealed that producers once intervened during rehearsals and ordered changes to his appearance because he supposedly looked “too gay”.
Speaking on The Remember Me Show podcast with hosts Scott Bryan and Maisie Adam, Terry described the moment he was suddenly pulled from a rehearsal shortly before a live broadcast.
“I had gotten really pally with the hair and make-up team, so I’m sat in the hair and make-up chair, and they’re like, ‘Shall we have some fun today?’” he said.
At the time, Terry had a large quiff hairstyle, and the team experimented with adding blonde highlights.
“I had this big quiff at the time, and we put loads of blonde in my hair.”
But when he later went to the stage for a sound check, he noticed the mood in the studio abruptly change.
“There was this energy. The whole room, the whole studio shifts – something bad happened,” he recalled.
According to Terry, producers quickly stopped the rehearsal and removed him from the stage.
“Producer comes in [and says], ‘Right we’ve got to take him to hair now’, and I’m like, what’s happened?”
“We have to change his hair back”
After being taken back to the hair and make-up department, Terry said he was left sitting in the chair without explanation, convinced he had done something wrong.
“No one was telling me what was going on. So I’m sat in this chair like I’ve done something really bad and all of a sudden my excitement’s gone … I looked up at this guy, his name was Jamie, and I’m like what’s wrong?”
Eventually, he was told the reason for the sudden change.
“I won’t say who – you can imagine who – said, ‘We have to change his hair back now because he looks too gay.’”
Terry said the moment came as a shock.
The singer had not publicly come out at the time and said the experience felt like a “double whammy”.
Producers allegedly believed the blonde highlights made him look “too gay” and clashed with the image they wanted him to project during the show.
Coming out years later
Terry explained that while he had not yet come out publicly during the competition, he already understood his own identity privately.
“No one has ever sat me down and said to me, look, we know you’re gay but we’re not going to tell anyone because it might affect your audience,” he said.
“It might mean that, I don’t know, young girls don’t fancy you.”
“I also haven’t told anyone [at the time], I’ve never come out to anybody, but in my heart I knew that about myself.”
The singer eventually came out publicly in 2024, eight years after winning the competition, during an interview with Gay Times after stepping back from the spotlight.
“How a TV show can work”
Looking back, Terry said the incident reflected a broader culture within reality television at the time.
He described it as a “good example” of the underlying homophobia that existed behind the scenes of some entertainment productions.
For Terry, the moment remains a reminder of how carefully contestants’ images were managed.
It also highlights the pressures performers can face when navigating identity in highly public environments.
