Omar Apollo Opens Up About Heartbreak, Creative Healing, and the Album That Nearly Broke Him

There's a particular kind of vulnerability that comes with turning your heartbreak into art. For queer artists especially, the act of translating intimate pain into music that resonates across stages and streaming platforms can feel like reliving the wound every single night. Singer Omar Apollo knows this feeling intimately—and he's ready to talk about it.

In a recent interview with "Butt" magazine, Apollo opened up about the emotional toll of his 2022 breakup and the creative aftermath that followed. The conversation reveals not just the mechanics of heartbreak, but the deeper struggle of what happens when you're forced to perform your sadness for audiences while still processing that sadness yourself.

Apollo was remarkably candid about his efforts to reconcile with his ex-boyfriend. "I begged and begged and begged," he told interviewer Bruce LaBruce. "No shame whatsoever. And I still don't have shame. At all. Like, you know what? That's how I was feeling!" The artist spent two years in this state of romantic limbo, hoping for a reunion that never came.

For many queer people, there's something particularly relatable about this kind of persistence in love—the refusal to be ashamed of wanting someone, of fighting for a relationship that mattered. In a culture that has historically demanded queer people minimize their desires or hide their affections, Apollo's unapologetic admission feels almost radical. He wasn't embarrassed about begging. He wasn't trying to perform detachment or coolness. He simply felt what he felt and said it out loud.

Yet this emotional honesty came with a price.

Apollo's debut studio album, "Ivory", dropped in April 2022—the same year his relationship ended. The timing wasn't coincidental. "I made a whole sad-ass album with no resolve about that situation," Apollo explained to LaBruce. The project became a document of unresolved grief, a sonic diary of someone still caught in the wreckage of love.

What Apollo discovered, however, was that creating art about pain doesn't necessarily process that pain—especially when you're required to perform it repeatedly. "When you perform these songs over and over again, they get locked into your body, and then you're just living in sadness," he said. "I don't want to live like that anymore."

This is a crucial insight for anyone who's ever turned personal trauma into creative work. The act of performance can crystallize emotion in ways that prevent healing. Rather than moving through grief, you're stuck in it—night after night, city after city, reliving the exact moment of devastation in front of hundreds or thousands of people.

Apollo's experience underscores a broader reality for queer artists: our pain is often commodified, consumed, and celebrated as "authentic" or "raw," but that doesn't mean the person behind the performance is actually healing. The audience gets catharsis. The artist gets to relive the wound.

Perhaps the most visceral moment in another of Apollo's interviews came when he described performing at Madison Square Garden. Just minutes before taking the stage to co-headline at one of the world's most prestigious venues, Apollo found himself crying on the bathroom floor. "This went on and on and on," he recalled. "I had to do shows, shows, shows, make money here, make money there. It fucked me up."

The image is haunting: a successful artist, moments away from performing for thousands, falling apart in private. It's a reminder that visibility and success don't protect you from emotional devastation. If anything, the demands of a touring schedule—the relentless pressure to show up, to perform, to be "on"—can intensify the isolation of processing grief alone.

For queer artists, there's an additional layer here. Many of us grew up with what Apollo describes as "survival instinct"—a drive born from navigating a world that wasn't always safe or welcoming. That urgency can push us to keep moving, keep producing, keep proving our worth. But as Apollo has come to realize, that survival mode isn't sustainable, especially when you're trying to heal.

What's striking about Apollo's current mindset is his refusal to rush. After years of operating from a place of urgency—the need to survive, to make money, to keep producing—he's stepping back. "The past three years have been too much, "he acknowledged. "I grew up with this urgency, the survival instinct, that lasted too long. But now I don't need to just survive, and the sense of urgency has finally died down."

He's recorded "hundreds of songs" in recent years, but he's being selective about what makes it onto his next album. Quality over quantity. Intention over impulse. "I can make music all day, but I want it to mean something," Apollo explained. "I want it to have depth. I want it to live longer than me. And that takes time."

This approach feels particularly important in an industry that constantly demands new content, new albums, new visibility. For queer artists, who are often expected to be endlessly available, endlessly productive, and endlessly grateful for their platform, Apollo's decision to slow down and be more intentional is almost rebellious.

When asked about his current dating life, Apollo was equally honest. "I've had lovers, but not a relationship," he told LaBruce. "I haven't had, like, a full love situation, no boyfriend-boyfriend thing, since 2022."

Three years is a long time to be without a committed relationship, and Apollo's willingness to acknowledge this without defensiveness or bravado is refreshing. He's not pretending to be thriving in some enviable single lifestyle. He's simply stating what is: he's been in a different emotional space, one focused on healing and recalibration rather than romantic entanglement.

For queer audiences, this honesty matters. We're often fed narratives about resilience and bouncing back, about turning pain into power and heartbreak into hits. Apollo's story acknowledges that sometimes healing is slower, messier, and less photogenic than those narratives suggest.

Apollo's journey illuminates something essential about queer life and creative work: the importance of protecting your emotional wellbeing, even—or especially—when you're in the public eye. His decision to step back from the relentless touring and content creation cycle, to be more intentional about his art, and to give himself permission to heal is a form of resistance against systems that demand endless productivity from marginalized creators.

When asked about his favorite thing about being queer, Apollo responded with characteristic warmth: "My favorite thing about being queer is. .. it's just too fab. It's just fab, all of it is fab. It's like you have to be fab."

But there's a difference between celebrating the fabulous aspects of queer culture and burning yourself out in the process. Apollo seems to have learned that distinction the hard way. His willingness to talk about the cost of creating from pain, the exhaustion of performing heartbreak, and the necessity of slowing down offers a model for other queer artists navigating similar terrain.

Apollo confirmed that another album is on the way, but on his own terms and timeline. "Yeah, of course," he said when asked about future releases. "But the past three years have been too much."

His sophomore album, "God Said No", is already available on streaming platforms, representing a shift in his artistic direction. But the conversation in "Butt" magazine suggests that Apollo is thinking even more deeply about what comes next—not just musically, but emotionally and spiritually.

For queer listeners who've found solace in Apollo's music, especially during their own heartbreaks, this interview is both comforting and cautionary. It's comforting because it validates the pain we feel when we listen to songs about lost love. It's cautionary because it reminds us that the artist behind those songs is human, vulnerable, and sometimes struggling just as much as we are.

Omar Apollo's openness about his breakup, his breakdown, and his decision to prioritize healing over productivity is a gift to the queer community. It's a reminder that survival instinct has its place, but so does rest. That vulnerability isn't weakness. And that sometimes the most radical thing a queer artist can do is simply take care of themselves.