{"id":671,"date":"2011-10-16T15:34:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T14:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/?p=671"},"modified":"2011-10-16T15:34:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T14:34:50","slug":"2011-marcus-collins-reveals-a-life-of-being-black-and-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/671\/2011-marcus-collins-reveals-a-life-of-being-black-and-gay\/","title":{"rendered":"2011: Marcus Collins reveals a life of being  black and gay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"marcus collins\" src=\"\/images\/uk\/x2011\/live\/marcuscollins_makeover.JPG\" alt=\"marcus collins\" width=\"341\" height=\"193\" \/>Marcus Collins is enjoying life as an X Factor star this year and no doubt wish it will continue for a long time to come, but speaking to The Mirror, Marcus revealed that growing up things were never this good.<\/p>\n<p>He told the tabloid that when growing up he was often bullied because he was black and then, when the racism died off, he became the victim of homophobic thugs.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about his childhood, Marcus admitted that he was \u2018beaten up\u2019 on many occasions when he was younger, saying:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was only three people who were mixed race, so we stood out. It wasn\u2019t just words, I was \u00adbeaten up too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut as I have gotten older racism has become less of a problem as people have become more educated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, when one problem disappeared, he was confronted with anther; Collins found himself attacked more regularly over his sexuality.<\/p>\n<p>He added:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s been a few low points, where it\u2019s been horrible, difficult and awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully Marcus does have support and has been dating his current partner, David Heath, for the last four years. Speaking about the backing he has received from his loved ones, the singer went on:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve got a good close-knit family and we talk about everything. It\u2019s definitely made me tougher. David and I are quite confident and people appreciate that.\u201d<br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-0466605792016836\";\n\/* auditions mid page 300x250, created 9\/6\/10 *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"2217652781\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Collins is enjoying life as an X Factor star this year and no doubt wish it will continue for a long time to come, but speaking to The Mirror, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","clearfix"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetalentzone.co.uk\/musictv\/xfactor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}