BREAKING FREE
Disney star Joshua Bassett, of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, takes centre stage about navigating fame, his body image battle and why he is thinking outside the box when it comes to his sexuality
Looks like we may have uncovered a new member of Mariah Carey’s ‘I Don’t Know Her’ club, as it transpires Joshua Bassett once royally snubbed Jennifer Lopez. Oh, the shade of it all; to be fair, he was only a wee mite, so we’ll cut him some slack.
“When I was eight, I was a background actor in a movie with Jennifer Lopez. I had talked to her and her co-star a few times, and as I was leaving the set, my dad was, like, ‘Go say goodbye to them.’
“I didn’t know who Jennifer Lopez was, but the other guy was super nice to me and welcoming, so I went over to the guy and gave him a hug. Then Jennifer Lopez opened her arms to hug me, and I went, ‘Nope,’ and ran back to my dad. I have no idea why, but I just did not want to hug Jennifer Lopez,” he laughs.
Our interview coincides with that rarest of occasions: a (wretchedly) hot summer’s day in the UK. I am holed up in a tiny room, with no air con, and as soon as I punch the video-call launch button, the sweat instantly begins to pour. Please note, dear reader, that I’m also wearing a light grey t-shirt. One word: shit.
The curly-haired Disney star pops up on screen, his skin almost cruelly un-damp, and I profusely apologise for my current state, a glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut in human form, while elegantly mopping some excess moisture from my brow. “All good,” he says, with a smile. “I’ll ignore it, don’t worry.”
Rocketing to fame as Ricky in the snappily titled High School Musical: The Musical: The Series – the Disney+ spin-off of the all-singing, all-dancing original that gifted the gays Ashley ‘Sharpay’ Tisdale (bet y’all thought I was gonna say Zac Efron) – Joshua won the role in the nick, or rather, nickel of time.
“Two weeks before I booked High School Musical… I woke up to the notification from Chase Bank that I had a negative dollar and 32 cents in my bank account. I was living in LA, and had rent due, and was, like, I don’t know how we’re going to figure this out, but we will.
“Luckily, I ended up getting a residual cheque from a commercial that ended up covering the cost entirely, but still, I didn’t have any income and, clearly, I wasn’t doing too hot. [Then I landed the part] and it was, like, OK, here we go!”
Joshua, who grew up in Oceanside, California, and was home-schooled, alongside his five sisters, by parents Laura and Taylor, pinpoints the exact moment he realised life post-HSMTMTS might never be the same again: “One of the big tells for me, for how different things were, was the first time I went to Disneyland. I wasn’t able to go alone, to go without a [security] guy, to the point where we had an entire crowd blocking the entrance… and they had to pull me backstage.”
Reared on a rich sonic diet of Billy Joel, Steely Dan, The Beatles and his “crazy magnetic” idol, Freddie Mercury, the 20-yearold is also hitting the right notes in the music industry and has a couple of singles under his belt, including most recent offering, Feel Something. “I’ve been in the studio all week, writing, lots of breakthroughs, lots of good stuff. I’m very excited about it,” he teases.
“I’m trying to be as honest as possible in my music right now… Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in, like, the pop of it all and making things that sound like X, Y and Z. It’s important to remember my roots and why people like my music in the first place, and
that’s for the song-writing, for the genuine, raw elements.”
Sounds like he is digging deep, too: “I wrote a song [yesterday] and I cried while I was singing it.” We do love a weepy.
Describing himself, somewhat surprisingly, as “very much an introvert”, Joshua opens up about being in the public eye. He has already weathered the ever-swirling media storm, from rumours that co-star Olivia Rodrigo’s break-up anthem Driver’s License was written about him – fans believed they were dating – to speculation about his sexuality (we’ll circle back to that).
“I don’t think anyone can prepare you for navigating it [fame]. It’s something you just have to learn how to deal with,” he starts.
“I personally am a very private person; I’ve always been a very private person, and I still am a very private person, and that can be tricky because not everything can necessarily remain private, and that’s part of the gig. You have to be aware and accept that other people are going to have opinions, other people are watching, and other people are making judgements based off themselves and their own projections.
“Obviously, there is validity to certain things, and you can’t be an asshole, but at the same time, you can’t take it personally.”
Having “learned a couple of strategies” – notably meditation and yoga – Joshua tries to steer clear of social media (aside from “some TikTok here and there”): “I was saying this to my friend the other day, I’m looking forward to when we all wake up and go, you know what, this is not worth it any more, this is no way to live, and social media becomes a secondary thing, more of a tool instead of being the centre of a lot of people’s lives.
“We’ve hijacked the human brain with dopamine and validation… we’re not supposed to have this much stimulation all the time, and it leaves you feeling deprived when you don’t have it. It’s a chemical thing.”
A health scare in January, when he was hospitalised with sepsis shock and heart failure, put things into perspective.
“My heart rate was going down, they kept taking my bloods, and it just wasn’t getting any better. They were seriously concerned, because I wasn’t improving, despite all the things they were doing to help. The nurse came in one more time and said, ‘We need to keep an eye on it,’ and I started freaking out,” he recalls.
“I was sitting there, and I was, like, ‘I need help.’ In that moment – not kidding – my heart rate went down for the first time in three days. They came back 30 minutes later, took my blood to do another test and said everything was going back to normal. All
I said was, ‘I need help,’ and I instantly felt better. I seriously can’t explain it.”
Appearing to be incredibly confident and comfortable in front of the camera for his Attitude cover photo shoot, shot in New York, Joshua shares that he isn’t always at peace in his own skin – and balks at the suggestion he is a heart-throb.
“I’ve never actually spoken about this before,” he confides. “I have struggled with body image issues and some serious problems, around the time when High
School Musical… started airing [in 2019]. I was constantly worrying about how I looked and taking certain actions to keep myself at a certain weight and physique, and it got really unhealthy.
“I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH BODY IMAGE ISSUES. I WAS CONSTANTLY WORRYING ABOUT HOW I LOOKED AND TAKING ACTIONS TO KEEP MYSELF AT A CERTAIN WEIGHT AND PHYSIQUE, AND IT GOT REALLY UNHEALTHY”
“The danger is when you start to equate how you look with your worth. I think I deal with that on a grand scale, but I know many people, if not, most people, deal with that in a micro way every day. In the acting industry, you’re selling your look, you’re selling yourself, you are the product… that pressure to keep up with that image, and to keep up with [that] expectation can be detrimental if you don’t learn how to accept yourself for who you are.”
He continues: “[People] think if they don’t meet this standard, people won’t like them, or people won’t want them or whatever, and that’s a dangerous attitude that I’ve fallen into many times. I’m learning how to not be so attached to how I look… what’s funny is, I don’t have any selfies on my phone; there are no photos of me. I take photos all the time, but they’re never of myself.”
Does he feel better about himself these days? “I do,” Joshua replies. “And not necessarily because anything has changed. Sometimes you can have a warped perception of yourself, and so I’ve gotten to a state where I’m more accepting and embracing.”
In May, the American actor and singer unwittingly sparked a frenzied guessing game, when a video, in which he called Harry Styles “hot” (facts are facts), before adding, “I guess this is my coming-out video” went viral.
Endless chatter about his sexuality led to the release of a statement – part of which read: “Love who you love shamelessly, it’s OK to still be figuring out who you are” – and this was shortly followed by an interview, where he proudly proclaimed that he is “happy to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community, because they embrace all”.
Joshua can’t quite get his head around the amount of attention the Hazza vid generated:
“I’d done that interview months before, and when it came out and it was, sort of, blowing up on Twitter and whatnot, my team were making me aware that it was blowing up, and they were, like, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m not worried about it, let’s see what happens… I don’t think I need to say anything about it.’
“But it kept going and growing – I was seeing comments and stuff, and I was, like, this is an important opportunity to say something that I’ve wanted to say for a while, but never felt like I had to, and never felt like I could. I wrote the statement in less than five minutes, and there was no part of me that was anxious, no part of me that was hesitant at all. It felt so right. I put it out and I’ve never looked back. It was liberating, it was freeing; it was nothing like I expected it to be.”
The LGBTQ+ spectrum is wondrously wide and undulating, and Joshua isn’t putting himself under any pressure to wear a label. (Eurgh, labels are, like, so millennial anyway.)
“I never really questioned it. It just was, if that makes sense. That’s something that I think is really cool about this generation, and the generation to follow; that you don’t need a box, and you don’t need to be put in a box,” he reflects. “But I would say that it definitely took a lot of time to realise that, and that might be because of our religious upbringing.”
Sadly – but by no means unexpectedly – not everybody was supportive of Joshua in the wake of his candid comments. “This was the first time where I was subjected to a lot of homophobia,” he reveals. “You know, I seem ‘straight’ to everyone I meet, pretty much, and I have had to see that [homophobia] firsthand. Seeing that put things into perspective,
“I WROTE THE STATEMENT IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES, AND THERE WAS NO PART OF ME THAT WAS ANXIOUS. I’VE NEVER LOOKED BACK. IT WAS LIBERATING, IT WAS FREEING, IT WAS NOTHING LIKE I EXPECTED IT TO BE”
of how far along we aren’t yet; I thought we were a lot further on than we are.”
However, the good outweighs the bad:
“On the flip side of all that are the responses I’ve gotten from people saying, ‘I’ve never had somebody put into words exactly how I feel.’ Or, ‘Thank you so much for helping me be seen.’ Or, ‘I can’t be who I am around my family, but because of you I feel a little bit safer, a little bit more at home.’
“That makes it all worth it. People can hate me forever and say the nastiest things possible, but it will not change a thing, because you need to stand tall and face those people as an advocate for all the people without a voice. Ultimately, all that garbage melts away from one story, let alone thousands of people telling me I’ve changed their life – which is wild, but a crazy honour.”
Joshua, whose other acting credits include US series Grey’s Anatomy and Stuck in the Middle, adds that he is so proud of HSMTMTS – currently in its second season – for striking a chord with queer audiences. Indeed, I believe the cast is made up of an LGBTQ+ majority. “I haven’t done the math, but I think you’re right,” he says. “If not, it’s 50/50, but yes, it’s a very queer cast for sure.”
He goes on: “As much as it is a big deal for a queer couple [HSMTMTS’s Carlos and Seb] to be on Disney+ – which is amazing – we treat it in the show like it’s completely ‘normal’. I think it’s cool that it’s very casual… Frankie Rodriguez, who plays Carlos, said that he never saw a Carlos on screen [when he was growing up], so for him to play Carlos and be that for his younger self is so special…. I’m excited to see, as time goes on, how our show has impacted people, because I know that it has and will continue to.”
On the subject of whether or not he would like art to imitate life with a queer storyline on the show, Joshua is “super open” to the idea. “I trust the writers, and I trust Disney to do what’s best, and you know what, I would love that,” he beams. “I’m down for whatever they choose. All of that’s out of my control, I don’t have a say in that, but yeah, that would be great.” Imagine the literal song and dance that would inspire.
Given that Joshua is considered a hero – or ‘queer-o’ – by LGBTQ+ youngsters, I wonder (admittedly, very randomly) if he has ever physically come to somebody’s rescue in real life. “I’ve never been asked that before,” he exclaims. “The one that comes to mind is, I was at my friend’s grandma’s house, she’s, like, 98, and I was tap dancing, and she wanted to tap dance, too. So, she started tap-dancing and she lost her balance and began to fall; it would have been a very tragic fall, not good at all. I ran and caught her before she fell onto the oven, basically.” No one wants a grilled granny…
I can tell that the intense heat is beginning to fry my brain, as I decide to regale Joshua with an anecdote involving a famous radio presenter who once saved an elderly woman from drowning in the Caribbean – only for her to lose her bikini bottoms while he is dragging her to safety along the beach.
“What a way to end,” he giggles. “Thank you for that visual, I appreciate it!”
And with that, the interview concludes, and I tackle the momentous task of wringing out my drenched t-shirt.
“PEOPLE CAN HATE ME FOREVER AND SAY THE NASTIEST THINGS POSSIBLE, BUT IT WILL NOT CHANGE A THING, BECAUSE YOU NEED TO STAND TALL AND FACE THOSE PEOPLE AS AN ADVOCATE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE WITHOUT A VOICE”