Rob Halford revealed in his memoir Confess that he was once arrested for cruising Venice Beach, California toilets looking for sex.
Halford wrote that it was similar to when George Michael was busted in a bathroom for a solo lewd act in Beverly Hills in 1998, but unlike Michael's arrest police kept it quiet because they were Judas Priest fans.
Halford told NME that "The police did me a favor by keeping it out of the press because it would have been big news. I always refer to that, slightly tongue in cheek, as my George Michael moment. I was lucky, because the sad thing is it makes people who don't understand the gay community just go, 'Obviously, they're all just a bunch of perverts.' And that's horrible."
Halford added, "I'd like to think for the most part if that incident had broken into the press, then a great proportion of my fans would have said, 'We'll support you and stand with you.' A few years later, when I came out on MTV, that was a proven fact because the feedback from around the world was positive -- they just wanted me to continue being the singer for Judas Priest and get on with the job."
Confess will be published September 29th.