After Birth of His Son, Aiken Says It's Time to 'Let the Guard Down'

Sept. 24, 2008 — -- In his first television interview since revealing he is gay, Clay Aiken told "Good Morning America" that after the birth of his son it was "time to let the guard down."

"I can't raise a kid and teach him how to lie, teach him to hide things. I can't raise a kid and teach him to keep secrets," Aiken told Diane Sawyer. "And at the same time, I also don't ever want to raise him in an environment where it's not OK for him to be exactly who he is, no matter what."

The "American Idol" alum, 29, appears on the cover of People magazine this week, cradling his new son, next to the headline, "Yes, I'm Gay."

Tune in to "Good Morning America" tomorrow for the second half of Diane Sawyer's interview with Clay Aiken.

Parker Foster Aiken, the singer's son with music producer Jaymes Foster, was born on Aug. 8. Foster, 50, became pregnant through in vitro fertilization, and she and Aiken have said they will raise their son together.

"She was ending a relationship, a marriage, which she had been in for over 20 years," he said. "She had always wanted kids; I've always wanted kids. Being a gay man, it wasn't something for me that was going to be an option either way."

Aiken, a born-again Christian, skirted questions about his sexuality for years, but first "admitted it" in 2003 while he was on "American Idol."

"When I got on 'Idol' and people were cheering me on and being supportive, there you are in an environment that is more open and more accepting and in an environment where you don't feel like such an outcast," he said. "I told Kimberley Locke, who was a fellow contestant with me on 'Idol.' She was the only person I'd ever told and she kept it to herself for years and years."

Telling his family, he said, was more difficult.

"Poor mom. I told her the day that my brother left for Iraq for the first time. We had left him at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina and were driving home and for whatever reason, I just thought, 'Well, it's a bad day already, might as well not spread it out.'"