Adam Lambert will auction stage attire to raise funds for LGBTQ community during coronavirus crisis

San Diego-bred vocal dynamo Adam Lambert is shown on stage with Queen.

The Queen singer and ‘American Idol’ runner-up, who grew up largely in San Diego, is bringing some of his stage attire out of the closet

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 27, 2020 3:33 PM PT

“American Idol” alum Adam Lambert isn’t literally taking the clothes off his back to help raise funds for LGBTQ people in need during the coronavirus pandemic. But the former San Diego singer is going into his closet to auction off 15 items of his stage attire for an online eBay auction.

The auction began Monday and runs through May 6. It is a partnership between the advocacy organization GLAAD and Lambert’s nonprofit Feel Something Foundation. All proceeds will go to GLAAD for its “continued support of LGBTQ people in need during the COVID-19 crisis and before,” according to a statement issued Monday by Lambert’s New York spokeswoman.

Lambert, 38, announced the auction during Sunday’s GLAAD charity fundraiser on Facebook Live. The event, billed as “Together in Pride: You Are Not Alone,” also featured Barbra Streisand, Melissa Etheridge, Billy Porter, Pete Buttigieg, Kesha and others.

“The Feel Something Foundation is honored to partner with GLAAD and eBay for our first fundraiser,” Lambert said in a Monday statement. “The funds raised through this eBay auction will be instrumental in helping the LGBTQ community during these unprecedented times.”

A 2000 Mt. Carmel High School graduate, Lambert made his stage debut at San Diego’s Lyceum Theater in a 1991 production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” He rose to national prominence during the 2009 season of “American Idol,” which saw him place second to Kris Allen.

Lambert has since toured and recorded as a solo artist. He is also the lead singer in Queen + Adam Lambert, which teams him with two co-founders of the legendary English rock band Queen.

The items being auctioned off by Lambert can be viewed, and bid on, at: ebay.com/e/charity/adam-lambert. They include: a pair of black and yellow H&M pants he wore during his 2013 “Trespassing” solo tour ($335); a leather-studded jacket from his “American Idol” season ($660); and a three-piece Dolce & Gabbana suit he wore during his 2019 U.S. “Rhapsody” tour with Queen.

Music

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”