{"id":85894,"date":"2024-06-01T12:05:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T16:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2024\/06\/01\/max-ernsts-love-letter-to-the-lgbtq-community\/"},"modified":"2024-06-01T12:05:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T16:05:50","slug":"max-ernsts-love-letter-to-the-lgbtq-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2024\/06\/01\/max-ernsts-love-letter-to-the-lgbtq-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Ernst\u2019s Love Letter to the LGBTQ\u00a0Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- no image --><\/p>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div class=\"pmc-paywall\">\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<em>This\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/t\/pride\/\">Pride<\/a>\u00a0Month, Billboard asked artists to write a series of love letters to their LGBTQ fans, highlighting what the community means to them as people and as artists. Below, Max Ernst of <a href=\"https:\/\/billboard.com\/artist\/shaed\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"billboard.com\/artist\/shaed\">SHAED<\/a>\u00a0shares his coming out story, and thanks the community for \u201cbeing my family.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn 2008, the idea of coming out at my Catholic all boys high school was inconceivable. Picture an array of 14 -year old wannabe hyper-masculine bros tossing around the word f\u2013got like it was a competition to see who could say it the most times in a sentence (I will admit that I wanted to be like them and as far as I knew, I had everyone fooled). <\/p>\n<div class=\"injected-related-story \/\/ lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-t-1 lrv-u-border-b-1 lrv-u-padding-t-050 lrv-u-padding-b-075 lrv-u-border-color-grey\">\n<div class=\"a-heading-border a-heading-border-background-color-grey a-heading-border-height-075 lrv-u-margin-b-075 lrv-u-margin-b-050@mobile-max\">\n<h3 id=\"title-of-a-story\" class=\"c-title  lrv-u-color-brand-primary a-font-primary-bold-s lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-u-padding-r-1 a-article-related-module-title a-article-related-module-title--color-brand-primary\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n<div class=\"o-card lrv-u-flex\">\n<p>\t\t\t<a tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/lists\/pride-month-love-letters-list\/\" class=\"lrv-u-flex lrv-a-unstyle-link lrv-u-color-brand-primary:hover\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-card__image-wrap lrv-u-flex-shrink-0 u-flex-basis-144 u-flex-basis-96@mobile-max\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-height-100p\">\n<div class=\"a-crop-3x2 a-crop-1x1@mobile-max lrv-u-height-100p\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/053124-LGBTQ-Love-Letters-billboard-1548.jpg?w=237&amp;h=147&amp;crop=1\" alt=\"Love Letters to the LGBTQ+ Community\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"\" width=\"\"><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"o-card__content lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-justify-content-center lrv-u-padding-lr-1 lrv-u-padding-lr-075@mobile-max\">\n<div class=\"o_category \">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"c_title \">\n<h3 id=\"title-of-a-story\" class=\"c-title  a-font-primary-medium-m lrv-u-padding-b-050 u-letter-spacing-0028@mobile-max\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tLove Letters to the LGBTQ Community: Read the Notes From MUNA, Joy Oladokun &amp;\u00a0More\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n<p><time class=\"c-timestamp  a-font-primary-medium-xxs lrv-u-color-brand-primary lrv-u-order-100\" datetime=\"00:00-YY-DD-MM\"><br \/>\n\t06\/01\/2024<br \/>\n<\/time><\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAs you can imagine, coming to terms with my sexuality and sharing this truth with friends and family wasn\u2019t easy. The first person I told was my twin brother, Spencer, in a late night drive to Richmond. I was 19. Before the word \u201cgay\u201d left my mouth, I was so visibly nervous that he thought I might have done something horrible, like kill someone. I could tell he was ready to help me bury the body, but as I explained to him I was attracted to men, the sense of relief was palpable for both of us \u2026 \u201cDude, take a deep breath \u2014 it\u2019s okay.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tNext, I told my best friend (and our lead singer), Chelsea, who embraced me with so much compassion and understanding that it made me wish I\u2019d confided in her years earlier. After that, it became easier to come out to family, friends, acquaintances, and the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tOf course, none of this would have been easy without the unwavering love and support from those closest to me. I realize that too many of us in the LGBTQIA+ community lack a supporting environment at home. The warm embrace I received from my family and close friends when I came out is the same love that I see run so deep within our community. Thank you for being my family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tLove,<br \/>Max<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/culture\/pride\/shaed-max-ernst-pride-month-love-letter-1235693881\/\">Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This\u00a0Pride\u00a0Month, Billboard asked artists to write a series of love letters to their LGBTQ fans, highlighting what the community means to them as people and as artists. Below, Max Ernst of SHAED\u00a0shares his coming out story, and thanks the community for \u201cbeing my family.\u201d In 2008, the idea of coming out at my Catholic all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}