Frank Ocean Avoids ‘Bisexual’ Label, Opens Up About Tumblr Letter

It's been a big year for Frank Ocean. Back in July, the singer, songwriter-for-hire and Odd Future affiliate released the acclaimed 'Channel Orange,' which was preceded by the acknowledgment of a bisexual past in a Tumblr post.  For his music and his admission, GQ named Ocean one of the magazine's "Men of the Year" and spoke with him about both.

Ocean would not say whether he considers himself bisexual, out of an unwillingness to be labelled. However, he did speak about how his life changed for the better as a result of posting his now-famous letter, even before the onslaught of publicity that immediately followed.

"The night I posted it, I cried like a f---ing baby," he said. "It was like all the frequency just clicked to a change in my head. All the receptors were now receiving a different signal, and I was happy. I hadn't been happy in so long. I've been sad again since, but it's a totally different take on sad. There's just some magic in truth and honesty and openness."

Ocean wrote the songs for 'Channel Orange' in three weeks and then worked on them in the studio for nine months, due to his perfectionist streak. "We all know we have a finite period of time," he continued. "I just feel if I'm going to be alive, I want to be challenged—to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn't an easy way, but it's a rewarding way...How on earth am I going to take the easiest way? A friend of mine jokes that I have a painstaking royalty complex. Like maybe I was a duke in a past life. But all you have is 100 percent. Period."