Life’s changed for Anthony Callea – and you can tell. Since being outed by a Sydney radio announcer earlier this year there’s a definite change in his personality. He is clearly more comfortable with himself, his life and his sexuality. If you will forgive the cliché, a weight has been lifted for the young man’s shoulders.

Now, on the back of his successful second album A New Chapter and newfound popularity thanks to his starring role on Channel 7’s It Takes Two, Callea has announced a national tour.

The tour kicks off at Rooty Hill in NSW on 27 July and will feature a mix of old tracks, songs from the new album and maybe a couple of surprises.

‘I’m looking forward to getting out and performing the tracks from the new album live. After spending a year in the studio you start to go insane,’ Callea said.

‘I don’t like to sing the same way each night and script it. I will sing songs from the first album and change them a bit and do different versions. It keeps my interest and hopefully the fans.’

The tour should prove the perfect lead into Callea’s next major challenge – a small role in Dead Man Walking – an operatic version of the Oscar winning movie.

‘I was unsure at first,’ the Australian Idol runner-up said of the role. ‘It’s not one of the lead roles, but I have a few lines and sing a few songs. I’ve always wanted to do a musical – I’m throwing myself in.’

The new attitude could have something to do with Callea’s ever increasing comfort with his sexuality. While the gay rumours started circulating almost from the moment he made his debut on Australian Idol, it is only now the singer has felt comfortable enough to embrace, acknowledge and celebrate his sexuality.

‘I was 21 and trying to find myself,’ Callea said of his early years of fame. ‘I knew who I was but being comfortable is completely different.’

But Callea was forced very quickly to find a place where he could be comfortable with being gay. In March this year breakfast radio traffic reporter Vic Larusso exposed Callea’s sexuality to a not-so-surprised audience.

But does Callea hold a grudge against Larusso for dragging him out of the closet? ‘The thing I was more pissed off with was that he called me a snob,’ the singer said.

‘I can’t even remember him coming up to the table that night we met – I was out with a group of people. I didn’t know who he was and he didn’t introduce himself to me.’

But for Callea the whole episode has disappeared as quickly as the media storm erupted. These days, he says, he is just focussing on his career, his life and spending as much time with his partner Paul as humanly possible when you are about to travel the length and breadth of the country.

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This article was written by Sunny Burns and appears courtesy of Sydney Star Observer, Sydney’s GLBT publication. For more SSO articles, visit www.ssonet.com.au.