Clay Aiken has been doing a TON of press for his recent starring role in “Spamalot” on Broadway. This is tolerable or terrible depending on your view of Clay Aiken. It’s definitely more tolerable if you only have to read it instead of hear him speak. Clay’s moved to the big city and at 29 years old is living alone for the first time in his life – and seems to feel rather panicky about the whole thing. He gave a surprisingly candid and friendly interview to New York magazine (let’s not forget his terse exchange with Newsweek recently). Clay’s still promoting his family-friendly, nerdy/geeky/dorky, pure-as-the-snow routine.

“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.”

[From New York Magazine]

Clay has long refused to talk about his sexual orientation, however he does talk about his personal life a bit – or lack thereof. Apparently Clay’s not interested in the men or the women – his only meaningful relationship is with his dogs.

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.”

But Aiken is 29 years old and he is also a human. Surely he must have needs. Urges. He contemplates this in silence for 20 or 30 seconds. “Ah think maybe I don’t! I mean, not really. I’ve just kind of shut it off, maybe. Is that bad?”

[From New York Magazine]

Given that interview, Clay Aiken strikes me as someone who could very well be asexual. I saw a story a while back on ABC News about people who say they’re asexual, and their whole motto was “sexless and proud.” Most of the people interviewed described themselves as asexual and said sex just had no appeal to them. Many claimed they had no inclination towards romantic relationships in general, and they had incredibly happy and fulfilling lives – they just have nothing to do with sex. It really sounds like that’s what Clay Aiken is describing. He’s been pestered by gay rumors for years – which he’s refused to discuss. It’s obviously possible Clay says the things he says as a way of sidestepping the issue. But it is also possible he’s got his own way of doing things and living his life, and he’s perfectly happy with that.

Clay’s been getting pretty good reviews for his Spamalot performance. Although New York magazine was definitely hard on him at several points in the article, they said he really fits into the role well – he even broke his “no cussing” policy. The article also speculates that living in New York may break Clay, and get him to loosen up a bit. Only time will tell.