Harry Styles Shares Why He Keeps His Life Private, Opens Up About Sexuality

Harry Styles has a good reason for keeping his personal life away from the public's scrutinizing eyes.

"I've never talked about my life away from work publicly and found that it's benefited me positively," the 28-year-old former One Direction vocalist said in the cover story for the October/November issue of Rolling Stone.

"There's always going to be a version of a narrative, and I think I just decided I wasn't going to spend the time trying to correct it or redirect it in some way," he added.

Besides discussing his need for privacy, Styles also opened up about his sexuality, which has been widely discussed by fans for years. The "Story of My Life" singer's penchant for supporting gender-fluid fashion and stage styles has constantly triggered questions about his sexuality and even his romantic life. He has also been accused of "queerbaiting" or appropriating queer aesthetics to benefit from the support of the LGBT community.

The singer even defended his image without defining his sexuality. "Sometimes people say, 'You've only publicly been with women,' and I don't think I've publicly been with anyone. If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn't mean you're choosing to have a public relationship or something," he told the publication.

Interestingly, the singer is set to spark more discussions about his sexuality when his film "My Policeman" comes out in October. In it, he plays a closeted gay police officer in the 1950s, a time when same-sex relationships were still frowned upon in the U.K.

"I think everyone, including myself, has your own journey with figuring out sexuality and getting more comfortable with it," Styles told Rolling Stone about the film. "It's not like 'This is a gay story about these guys being gay.' It's about love and about wasted time to me."

His relationship with Olivia Wilde has also been the subject of countless discussions online due to their 10-year age gap. Some fans have gone as far as creating Twitter and TikTok videos criticizing their relationship, which is bothersome considering that Styles doesn't want people to get hurt simply by getting associated with him.

"It's obviously a difficult feeling to feel like being close to me means you're at the ransom of a corner of Twitter or something," he explained, as per the publication. "I just wanted to sing. I didn't want to get into it if I was going to hurt people like that."