Razorlight <\/a>frontman). Interviews branded him an \u201coddball\u201d and \u201cstrange\u201d \u2013 prompting Queen guitarist Brian May to write a blog post in his defence \u2013 others lambasted him for refusing to confirm he was gay (\u201cWhy won\u2019t Mika give a straight answer?\u201d ran one headline). Male writers \u2013 and it did seem to be exclusively men \u2013 loathed him for his anthem for fat women, \u201cBig Girl (You Are Beautiful)\u201d. Had they asked, Mika might have told them it was inspired in part by his mother, Joannie, who died of a brain tumour in 2021. <\/p>\n![\"Cartoon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-75459431.jpg\")
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Cartoon motion: Mika performing at Somerset House, London, in 2007 (Getty)<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a big girl, and she couldn\u2019t wear clothes from the shops \u2013 she made her own,\u201d he explains. \u201cIf I close my eyes, I know all of her outfits. She made every piece of clothing for herself, and ours too. My whole childhood, there was the sound of the sewing machine.\u201d <\/p>\n
He points to the walkway in front of us: \u201cShe\u2019d walk across here in a pink and red fuchsia dress or an emerald coat, with a big ruffle and a bow in her hair.\u201d Joannie was bullied her whole life, he says, and struggled with her weight. \u201cShe came from an abusive relationship with her mother, who was only 15 years older than her. Her one resistance was colour and expressing herself \u2013 she said that was freedom.\u201d He smiles at the memory. \u201cIt\u2019s so funny, because that\u2019s such a stylish thing to say, yet it\u2019s anti-fashion because she refused to conform.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Joannie who encouraged Mika to pursue music, homeschooling him briefly when he was bullied due to his bright clothes and his dyslexia, and sending him to a professional opera singer. He soon proved himself to be a child prodigy, performing at the Royal Opera House and singing in TV jingles. \u201cWhen you mourn a parent, especially one who\u2019s been really influential in your life, I think there\u2019s a kind of handover that happens in terms of being truly accountable for the things you feel, and the way you respond emotionally to the world around you,\u201d he says. \u201cThat can happen at 15 years old, and it can also happen at 60.\u201d <\/p>\n
As a songwriter, his answer has been to sit down at his piano \u2013 the same upright piano his family were able to retrieve after the rest of their possessions and home were seized in the early Nineties \u2013 and write. \u201cIt\u2019s strange, this job, because you become emancipated so quickly and so young, but other parts of you lag really far behind. There\u2019s a kind of arrested development that happens \u2013 but then that\u2019s a great starting point for an album.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mika\u2019s precociousness is a major part of his appeal. He\u2019s 42 now, but still maintains a wide-eyed, childlike nature. You hear it in songs on Hyperlove, such as the glimmering \u201cImmortal Love\u201d and the bright, pulsating camp of \u201cModern Times\u201d. Given women in pop have been doing so much of the heavy-lifting over the past five years, it feels as though we\u2019ve been crying out for the return of at least a few male artists who can match that level of glittery, high-octane entertainment. \u201cThe thing about writing at the piano is you\u2019re chasing a state of euphoria,\u201d Mika says. \u201cIt\u2019s what I did for my first album and what I did with Hyperlove, so while I\u2019ve grown up a lot in that time (thank god), that same process gives a kind of joy that is as intimate as it is explosive and euphoric.\u201d <\/p>\n
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\u2018Hyperlove is that feeling we chase when we\u2019re writing songs, about desire\u2019 (Press)<\/p>\n
That sums up a little of what his album title, Hyperlove, means to him. \u201cHyperlove is this state of loving in the modern age,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s that feeling we chase when we\u2019re writing songs \u2013 about desire, the celebration of having it and wanting more, or the lamentation of not having it, or having lost it. That first time you\u2019ve been kissed, then every time being kissed after that, getting that feeling again.\u201d He gestures at the London skyline in front of us: \u201cWhat I can taste in the air right now, in this city that I love, is yearning. It\u2019s like, can you make me fall in love with the world again? Can someone make me dream again? You have to set your sights on it, chase it.\u201d Love and songwriting, then, to Mika are one in the same. <\/p>\n
He knows a lot about both. He\u2019s been with his partner, filmmaker and producer Andreas Dermanis, for 20 years now, and they share their house in Kent along with a place in Miami and a 650-year-old farmhouse (\u201cit\u2019s falling apart\u201d), in the Italian countryside, where Mika has his studio. They met at a pub called The Ring, which is still there, opposite Southwark Tube station, after Dermanis asked him out. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me he was going to spend the rest of his life with me, that first day,\u201d Mika says. \u201cI thought he was mad, absolutely bonkers crazy! But it\u2019s been 20 years \u2013 we had a break for six months, in that kind of wobbly bit after seven years, but we managed to overcome that.\u201d What\u2019s the trait he loves most about him? I can see him struggling to pick just one: \u201cHe cares. He\u2019s very kind. And he loves animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andy told me on our first date that he was going to spend the rest of his life with me. I thought he was bonkers<\/p>\n
Scrutiny over his sexuality was \u201ckind of brutal\u201d, he acknowledges, as was the branding of his music \u2013 colourful and eclectic \u2013 as \u201cbrazen\u201d, a term he feels was linked to the demand for him to come out publicly (he told a journalist he was gay in 2012). \u201cOf course, it was tricky to deal with, but I don\u2019t see myself as a victim because unfortunately, I think it kind of goes with that territory,\u201d he says with a shrug. \u201cThe problem was that it just makes life unnecessarily complicated \u2013 I wish I could have just removed that a little bit from my field of attention. It was a shame, but at the same time, I was so lucky, because I was working it out and I was addressing sexuality in every single artistic gesture, and I still do to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s enjoying his forties, and seems to have hit a fresh creative streak, working with Dermanis on a new music video, coming up with costume ideas and surrounded by like-minded friends and collaborators. \u201cIt influences this taking hold of your identity and saying, \u2018Actually, I can decide \u2013 we can decide to be a bit weird.\u2019 You can find your own path,\u201d he says. \u201cIt takes a lot of work, but who cares? Everything\u2019s a lot of work: being a really good butcher, or growing amazing vegetables or making really good wine, or being artists like Gilbert and George. But isn\u2019t it so joyful to be creative?\u201d <\/p>\n
We finish our tea and get up, both taking one last admiring glance at the London skyline. Waiting for our respective cabs, we find ourselves chatting about Derek Jarman\u2019s Prospect Cottage in Dungeness; his garden where beauty grows even in the toughest of conditions. Another hug and we part ways, and I think to myself how much duller the world would be without Mika in it. <\/p>\n
\u2018Hyperlove\u2019, the new album from Mika, is out on 23 January<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-225653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}