NKOTB's Jonathan Knight Says He Was Pressured To Hide His Sexuality

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that celebrities have frequently faced pressure to stay in the closet to protect their careers. Although it’s still something that happens today, it was far more common in past decades — and New Kids on the Block singer Jonathan Knight recently opened up about his own experience feeling stuck in the closet.

Knight was publicly outed in 2009 when an ex-boyfriend detailed their relationship for The National Enquirer, although the singer had been out in his personal life for some time prior.

But in a recent episode of fellow boy bander Lance Bass’s podcast, Knight admitted he was under a lot of pressure to make sure nobody found out he was gay during NKOTB’s pinnacle of fame.

“[My manager] pulled me aside and was like, ‘If anybody finds out, your career is over. The New Kids’ career is over. My career is over,’” he recalled. “It was just so much pressure. Looking back, that’s a lot of pressure to put on somebody who is just trying to figure out the world themselves.”

Knight was just 18 when NKOTB exploded onto the scene, and in his mid-20s when he decided to leave the group. He spent the following years living a quiet life as a realtor and dating whomever he wanted to date without publicly announcing sexuality until being outed in the Enquirer forced him to make a statement.

“I didn’t want to,” he admitted. “I was just living my life… it wasn’t something I was hiding. But then it was like, ‘No, you have to make a statement. You have to clear the air.’ And that whole process was horrible.”

By the time he was outed, Knight was already dating Harley Rodriguez. The two eventually tied the knot in 2022.