Holly Johnson 'cancelled' after HIV status reveal

Holly Johnson rose to fame with Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the 1980s

Frankie Goes to Hollywood frontman Holly Johnson said he was cancelled by the music industry after he shared his HIV diagnosis.

The 64-year-old said very few people from the music industry contacted him after he made his HIV status public during an interview in 1993.

"It was a bit like living in a desert for about 10 years," he said.

"The gay community supported me, I did some performances at [clubs], but jobs were hard to come by at that time. I was sort of cancelled by the music industry."

An exhibition charts Johnson's early life and career, from young musician to international renowned star

He was speaking ahead of the opening of The Holly Johnson Story, an exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool exploring his life and rise to fame as one the earliest openly gay and openly HIV+ high-profile artists.  

"The gay thing was a bit isolating in the music industry," he said.

"There were a lot of other gay singers and they'd all been advised to stay in the closet.

"It was considered dangerous and it did affect the band's profile in middle America.

"It was great in New York and LA and San Francisco, so we were at the forefront of that and it wasn't easy.

"Everything that was written about us was 'gay this and gay that', I think that's why the Pet Shop Boys stayed in the closet during the 80s.

"People had the eye on marketing and money."

'An amazing period'

Arts groups Homotopia and DuoVision says the exhibition charts Johnson's early life and career.

"It was an amazing period but it was a lot of hard work it wasn't as glamourous as your dreams of pop music fame," the Liverpool-born star said.

"They worked you to death back in those days. There was no idea of looking after young people, it was very 'let's milk them for all they've got'."

The exhibition also marks the 40th anniversary release of the huge-selling album Welcome to the Pleasuredome.

It features the band's biggest hits: Two Tribes, The Power of Love and Relax, which was famously banned by the BBC.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood's debut album Welcome to the Pleasuredome reportedly sold about 250,000 copies in its first week

He said he wrote Relax while he was walking through Liverpool from his mum's house to rehearsals.

"It just floated in my head and I started singing it to keep myself motivated," he said.

"I burst out laughing while I was singing it because I thought it was funny. I didn't think much of it until I got to rehearsal and I started singing it again.

"I didn't need to write it down. It's quite simple and it suck in my head and that's the sign of a good one."

Holly Johnson met legendary pop artist Andy Warhol

The exhibition is part of a project that has documented LGBTQ+ heritage by working with sexual health and wellness charity Sahir to explore Johnson's archive and capture the stories of local LGBTQ+ people in community workshops and history sessions.

It will feature items from his career including costumes, memorabilia, personal audio accounts of people living with HIV in Liverpool and paintings by the singer himself.

“The opportunity to mount this exhibition is actually like winning the National Lottery for me. As a teenager Music and Art were my passion," Johnson said.

"Everything I was ever drawn to, through a lens of queerness and controversy, I brought with me into the future we live in now.”

The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday.