Yungblud has opened up about people’s misconceptions about him and the treatment he has received online because of this.

The Doncaster rock star was talking to NME for this week’s Big Read cover story, which arrives ahead of his self-titled third album, slated for release on September 2.

In the interview, the musician – whose real name is Dominic Harrison – spoke about the misconceptions people have of him. “I think I’ve been painted with a brush,” he told NME. “So much of what has been said about me has come from a manipulated truth that has blown up on Twitter. I’ve always provided answers for people – and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

He continued to list some of the inaccuracies that people believed to be true about him. “Remember when everyone came after me, saying I appropriated the working class? Or when they said I was a queer-baiter? That’s not true; that’s just someone else’s opinion of what I am. It’s like, ‘How dare you question my sexuality on the internet?’ [Harrison came out as pansexual in December 2020].”

The star added that he has since started to see opportunities to learn in others’ criticisms and scepticism, and is more assured of his artistic worth. “I know what I have to say is from a place of truth,” he explained.

Check out the full Big Read cover interview with Yungblud here, where he talks about working with WILLOW, the advice Ozzy Osbourne gave him, the misconceptions people have about him, and shares insight into his new album.

Yungblud announced his third record last month (May 17) and explained he had named it after his stage moniker “because nothing in my life has ever made more sense”.

“Everything up to this moment has been a complete explosion of uncensored expression, where I just told the truth and sang about what I felt in that exact moment,” he wrote on Instagram.

“The difference here is that I have thought and felt this record so deeply. I went to a part of myself that I didn’t know was there. I studied it, I bathed in the emotion, tried to solve the equation and come up with an answer (at least for now) from love to pain, adoration to abandonment, laughter to betrayal.”

Meanwhile, the artist received praise from another musical icon earlier this year when The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger credited him and Machine Gun Kelly with bringing “life” to modern rock. “In rock music you need energy and there have not been a lot of new rock singers around. Now there are a few,” Jagger said in a recent interview on Swedish radio.

“You have Yungblud and Machine Gun Kelly. That kind of post-punk vibe makes me think there is still a bit of life in rock and roll.”