Reece King
The queer British model returns to our cover louder, stronger and even prouder than he was before.
Blurring the binary is one of the joys of the job for model and influencer Reece King. “I love it,” says the pusher of envelopes and challenger of masculine norms. “I didn’t have the language for it when I was younger so it’s interesting to go from constantly being told that what I’m naturally doing isn’t acceptable or isn’t seen as understandable to now not having to be just one thing.”
He’s done photoshoots in a pair of high heels and a thong. In Hackney. Outdoors. And he’s attended events and fashion shows in clean-cut suits. Not being “just one thing” is the MO of a man who has modelled for Prada, GAP, Superdry, Viktor & Rolf and Topman and has been hailed as a rising star by Kurt Geiger. He also pens poetry and keeps it real by using his Instagram platform (which currently attracts more than half a million followers) to talk about selfcare and self-love.
“I most enjoy when I get to mix all these elements that people have divided,” says the 25-year-old chameleon who won’t be boxed-in or pigeonholed. “That’s like my natural personality - different aspects of different things rather than trying to put it all together at the same time.”
Shaking things up when it comes to notions of masculinity isn’t a conscious thing for London-born Reece. “I just think I’ve been growing as an individual and I’ve always been feminine and masculine at the same time, but I’ve only just started to really come out of myself. It feels good and I feel safe and that I can do it. “So it’s not something I do consciously but I do walk into rooms and I’m thinking, ‘How can I do something that’s a bit different? How can I be me?’ I can really play that masculine role well and I think I get jobs and situations where I can be more masculine. I’m a man and I identify as a man but at the same time within myself and my energy and my character there’s a lot of feminine energy there too. I like to use that because it makes it more me.”
When Reece first spoke to Gay Times Magazine as our February 2018 cover star, he’d already tweeted about his bisexuality. “But it was like my identity wasn’t fully formed,” he says now. “There was so much pressure to show my identity to the world even though I didn’t really know what it was myself. I do still feel like I’m learning. I feel like I know who I am but I’m still in the process of unravelling my identity. I think that’s an eternal thing - that I think I’m gonna keep finding more of myself.”
In that 2018 interview, he formally stated, ‘Yeah, I am bisexual’ which with hindsight he sees as a major turning point. “I’d addressed my sexuality on social media prior to that interview but that was the first discussion about it and it’s a really pivotal moment that stands out. I’m so grateful for it.”
Reece identifies as a queer man. “Labels are interesting because I’m still learning about myself but I feel very comfortable calling myself queer or open. When it comes to sexuality a lot of it is down to who you’re attracted to, who you’re having sex with and who you go to sleep with at night. For me, for the most part that is men but I’ve always been open to women. There seems to be this huge pressure on bisexual people because it’s kind of like you have to do both otherwise you’re not seen as valid, but whoever I have a connection with it and it works - I can run with that. Genitalia is just genitalia. It’s, like, the least important thing. I’m open to the whole spectrum of queerness.”
Since his last chat with us, the refreshingly honest King notes life’s been good but also bad at times, admitting: “A lot of positive things happen but a lot of negative things happen at the same time, but that’s life.” His busier-thanever career is all positives. The negatives relate to personal matters, “just family stuff” that he understandably prefers not to go into detail about. “My mental health this year has been hard for me, to be honest, but I’ve started therapy and I’ve kind of had to stand back and reevaluate certain things. It’s a process but just being aware of it has helped me to stay on top of any depression that comes or anxiety.”
Last year he told us he was negotiating his way around social media and he’s still in the middle ground when it comes to the pluses and minuses of having such a huge following. “The more I do it the more comfortable I am with how I use it - how I use the tool and my energy towards it. I want to put out a message that nobody is perfect and even if they are they don’t always feel like it inside and that none of this image stuff is important. But I kind of approach social media differently now. I like to not be on there all the time and try to not oversaturate myself, even though that’s what people want - they want to see every detail, everything. I’m using it less because I’m becoming more aware that you don’t have to be in that space all the time. With everything I post - my content and my words - I want it to have real substance. If I’m posting something it’s because I believe in it and hopefully people take something from that or are inspired by it.”
A child of the 90s, Reece began his modelling career at age 20. Prior to that he’d been raised by a single mother and worked in retail to help the family out, eventually quitting to concentrate on cover shoots and fashion campaigns. He’s talked to interviewers about often being given the role of ‘The guy’ because of his tattoos and masculine energy but he’s never let that limit him, pushing back against heteronormative hyper-masculinity by covering his head with pink flowers or draping himself in gold jewellery.
Reece has previously posted about, and indeed spoke to Gay Times Magazine about, being dropped from one particular campaign for being too femme, where he was lined up for a job that suddenly evaporated after he did a magazine shoot in women’s clothing. “Nothing like that has happened since,” he’s happy to note now, “but I do feel there have been moments where my head has been chopped off an image because of a do-rag or styling choices.”
Signed to Supa Model Management London, he’s trying to take more charge of his modelling destiny. “I think I have more awareness now and when it comes to jobs, partnerships and brands we kind of make sure that everything is 100% black and white so a situation like that doesn’t happen again. I don’t