Coldplay’s Chris Martin sat down for a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone founder and editorial director Jann Wenner. One of the topics they covered was Martin’s religious upbringing and how it affected him during a time he was questioning his sexual orientation. Martin said his earlier beliefs about God were very “man with a beard in the sky” who was very punitive, and were later influenced by evangelical Christianity. This prompted a lot of conflict when he began questioning if he was gay.

Said Martin: “When I went to boarding school I walked a bit funny and I bounced a bit and I was also very homophobic because I was like, ‘If I’m gay, I’m completely f**ked for eternity’ and I was a kid discovering sexuality. [I thought to myself], ‘Maybe I’m gay, maybe I’m this, maybe I’m that, I can’t be this’ so I was terrified. And then I walked a bit funny and I was in a boarding school with a bunch of quite hardcore kids who were also gone for their thing and, for a few years, they were very much like, ‘You’re definitely gay,’ in quite a full-on manner, quite aggressively telling me that and it was weird for me for a few years…”

Asked Wenner: “Did you think you were gay?”

Replied Martin: “[I thought to myself], ‘I don’t know and even if I am, I can’t be because it’s wrong… If I am, I can’t be’ so that was creating a terrible turmoil…”

Asked Wenner: “Did [the kids] convince you that you were gay?”

“I start to worry about it for sure,” replied Martin. “About 15 and a half, I don’t know what happened, but I was like, ‘Yeah so what?’ and then it all just stopped overnight. It was very interesting. Once I was like, ‘Yeah, so what if I’m gay.'”

“What stopped? Your worry, or the kids?” asked Wenner.

Replied Martin: “The worry and anyone teasing you and…I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was reading about Elton. I really don’t remember. Maybe just growing up a bit and having a bit more exposure to the world thinking, ‘A lot of my heroes are gay’ or whatever. Whatever they are, it doesn’t really matter. So what that did was ease a big pressure and then made me question, ‘Hey maybe some of this stuff that I’m learning about God and everything — I’m not sure if I subscribe to all of this particular religion’… So for a few years that was a bit wobbly and then eventually I just was like, ‘Okay, I think I have my own relationship with what I think God is and it’s not really any one religion for me.’”

Watch the full interview HERE.