EXCLUSIVE Steps' Ian H Watkins hits out at JK Rowling as he claims the LGBTQI+ community is 'under attack': 'How dare you challenge my existence?'
In his latest career venture the Steps star has released a children's book teaching younger generations that being different is your superpower and Pride is a safe space for people to be open and not be judged by others.
Reflecting on his own experience growing up in the Rhondda Valley in Wales in the 80s and 90s, the singer admitted that while things are now more progressive the LGBTQI+ community are still 'under attack'.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Ian explained: 'There are a few, they are the minority, a few very powerful people making decisions that the majority do not agree with.... So this book is also a big middle finger up to the b***ts.'
Most notably JK Rowling has been very vocal on the subject of trans people for several years and following the Supreme Court 's judgment on April 17, the author has consistently referred to transgender women as being 'men'.
Meanwhile Stephen Fry also criticised LGBT charity Stonewall as 'nonsensical' and 'stuck in a terrible, terrible, quagmire' on trans issues as he admitted 'I am not sure I support them' in December.
Asked what his response would be to those who use their platform to go against more liberal and progressive views, he began: 'I would say "how dare you?" How dare you challenge my existence.
'Queer people have always been here, we are here and we always will be here. So how dare you make me feel like a second-rate citizen?
'I don't want acceptance, I demand respect and every other LGBTQI+ person would say the same.'
Encouraging people to be kind he continued: 'There's actual human beings involved. I think they are playing a political game. But at the end of the day, the bottom line is just be kind.
'We're all facing struggles on a daily basis, you never know what somebody is going through, so just be kind, life is hard enough, let it go.'
The star added: 'Who I choose to love, why does that form your opinion? Why should that make you lose sleep at night? No. Worry about yourself.'
Ian's new book titled Pride and the Rainbow Warriors follows the Rainbow Warriors on a journey as they teach readers of all ages the definition, history and importance of Pride and what it means to be included in the LGBTQ+ community.
Talking about the book, the star explained: 'It's a little love letter to my younger self.
'It's a book that I wish I had had when I was growing up. I was bullied. I was made to feel very different.
'I spent lots of time out of school because I was I called names. I felt like I was secluded and I wanted my children and their friends to grow up in a very different world so that's where the idea for this book came from.'
Ian shares twin sons Macsen and Cybi with his former partner Craig Ryder. The couple welcomed the boys via surrogate in 2016 before splitting a year later.
Explaining how accepting his children are of sexuality, he joked: 'One of the things Cybi said to me, we're talking maybe five years ago when they were four or five.
'He went, so Daddy, 'boys can marry boys" and I sad "yes," and "girls can marry girls" and I said "yes," and he said "But can a T-rex marry a pterodactyl? And that was the conversation.
'They didn't care about what humans could marry what humans. It was more that the T-rex would eat the pterodactyl. That was the conversation.'
After coming out publicly in 2007 in an interview with The Sun, Ian revealed he now feels he is 'making up for all of the years I spent in the closet while in Steps.
'It was a very dark time for LGBTQ people in the 90s. You were demonised. You were painted as the devil. It was sensationalised when somebody was in the closet.
'There was always a gay in the band and the papers knew about it, the press knew about it, and we were scared but I feel like now I'm making up for it.'
He added: 'I have a lot of peace to make with my silence and I'm very proactive. I use my voice in a political way and a supportive way for all of my peers.
'So it's a passion project for me this book and I'm really, really proud of it.'
As well as the release of the new book, Ian also devotes his time to talking about diversity in schools and encouraging children to embrace their uniqueness.
He added: 'There's also a massive lack of education in schools and libraries. The resources are very, very, very sparse. There's not much of it at all so that was another kind of fire in my belly to get this out there.'
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As a professional musician Whitlock cut his teeth playing keyboards in the local bands the Short Cuts and the Counts, and Stax planned to record an album with him on its subsidiary label, Hip Records, making him the first white artist signed to Stax. However, Whitlock felt that they were trying to turn him into a lightweight pop artist – 'It turned out to be bubblegum garbage music that they recorded with me' – so he was delighted to be recruited by the Bramletts instead. He travelled to Los Angeles to join them, and as he recalled it: 'We started Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, just Delaney and Bonnie and myself.' Whitlock asserted that Derek and the Dominos were 'the very best band on the planet … We were better than anybody,' but their progress was cut short by a surfeit of drugs and alcohol. The rock critic Robert Palmer described how he visited the Layla recording sessions in Miami and found that 'there was a lot of dope around, especially heroin, and when I showed up, everyone was just spread out on the carpet, nodded out.' The Dominos split in 1971 after an abortive attempt to record a second album, though all the band members as well as the Bramletts and Harrison appeared on Whitlock's debut solo album, Bobby Whitlock (1972). Reflecting on the Dominos in the Houston Press, Whitlock commented that 'I am very happy that the one studio record was the 'one' and that was it. It never will have anything other than itself to be compared to.' He would release three more solo albums during the 70s, while his other musical activities included adding vocals to Dr John's album The Sun, Moon & Herbs (1971) and an appearance on the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (1972). For the latter, Whitlock claimed he had co-written the track I Just Want to See His Face, but was not given a songwriting credit. In 1973 he played organ on Down the Road, the second album by Stephen Stills's band Manassas, but found himself deprived of a songwriting credit for the track City Junkies, which was based on a jam between Whitlock and the drummer Dallas Taylor. During the 80s and 90s, Whitlock largely retired from music and retreated to a farm in Mississippi. He made a musical comeback in 1999 with the album It's About Time. On Christmas Eve 2005 he married CoCo Carmel, a musician who had been married to Delaney Bramlett from 1987 to 2000, and the pair of them recorded several albums and made regular live appearances. From 2006 to 2021 they lived in Austin, then moved to Ozona, Texas. In recent years he became a keen painter, and frequently had his work displayed in galleries. In 2010 he published a memoir, Bobby Whitlock: A Rock'n'Roll Autobiography, co-authored with Marc Roberty and with a foreword by Clapton. In May 2024 he was awarded a brass note on the Beale Street Walk of Fame in Memphis, an event he commemorated with a new song, Walking on Beale Street. He is survived by CoCo, his children Ashley, Beau and Tim, and his sister, Debbie. Robert Stanley Whitlock, musician, singer and songwriter, born 18 March 1948; died 10 August 2025
