Omar Apollo admits he had huge crush on Wizards of Waverly Place actor David Henrie
Omar Apollo was “obsessed” with Wizards of Waverly Place and even developed a crush on Disney Channel star David Henrie. (Getty)
Queer singer-songwriter Omar Apollo revealed which Wizards of Waverly Place star he had a crush on growing up.
Apollo shared during an appearance at Variety’s Hitmakers Brunch, where he was honoured with the TikTok Future Icon Award, that he hoped to meet fellow honouree Selena Gomez.
The singer flushed about watching Gomez on the Disney Channel hit Wizards of Waverly Place and how he developed a childhood crush on one of her co-stars.
“I was obsessed,” Apollo said. “I had a crush on somebody on the cast.”
The “Evergreen” singer revealed that someone was David Henrie, who played Justin Russo in the Disney teen sitcom. Justin was the older brother of Gomez’s character Alex, a young teen with magical powers who lives with her family on the titular street.
Omar Apollo also addressed his now-viral response to queerbaiting accusations on Twitter.
A Twitter user accused Apollo of being what they described as a “queerbaiting singer” in a post from 28 November. However, Apollo quickly responded with a saucy note, highlighting that he is queer, saying: “No i b sucking dick fr”.
He followed it up by adding “from the back” with the 100 emoji.
“I said what I said,” Apollo told Variety. “To be honest, I didn’t even think about it.”
Apollo described seeing the tweet when he “was at a dinner” and was so nonplussed about the message that he simply “answered and then at dinner”.
“At the end of the dinner, I looked at my phone and I was like, ‘Oh, no’,” he said.
“It was so funny, my friend’s dad like saw it and I was like, ‘Oh, no, that’s kind of embarrassing’, but it was great. He thought it was really funny.”
Omar Apollo doesn’t label his sexuality, and he has been open about his queerness for quite a while with many of his songs speaking about relationships with men.
Apollo told the Guardian in April that he’d “rather just make music and talk about what [he wants] to talk about”.
The singer admitted he’s heard homophobic “s**t in [his] home town” and that “people called [him] slurs” growing up, but he felt a sense of freedom being open about his authentic experiences as an artist.
“But on the internet people are very open,” Apollo explained. “I’ve never seen anything bad about the gay love songs.”
