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"God made men men and women women. And you have to live the way God wants us to live." In his last interview, conducted for the Christian channel Three Angels Broadcasting Network in 2017, Little Richard condemned honosexuality and transsexuality as "unnatural affections" that go against the designs of the Most High. Five years earlier, in another interview with the magazine 'GQ', he had stated: "We are all masculine and feminine at the same time. Sex is for me like a buffet. If something throws me away, I go for it. What is my sexuality? I'm pansexual! "

This comings and goings game around his sexual identity was a constant throughout Little Richard's career . A hideous mess of ideas and references that mixed everything, such as the 'tutti frutti' that gave its first hit its title.

Far from being a definitive movement, his abandonment of the stage in 1957 to become an apostle of the word of Jesus marked the beginning of an ambivalent relationship with sex and religion. Little Richard was a sinner and he publicly proclaimed it before God and the rest of men. But the path to holiness was very difficult for him.

Thus, he was expelled from Oakwood University, where he enrolled in Theology, in the late 1950s for exhibitionism before another student at the center. And in 1962, he was arrested, accused of spying on men at the urinals of a Long Beach (California) bus station . And is that 'voyeurism' was another of his hobbies throughout his life, which provided him with moments of solace (especially with his girlfriends), but also legal problems.

In his book 'Quasar of Rock: The Life and Times of Little Richard' (1985), his official biographer, Charles White, puts in the mouth of the rock star an idea about a word that he had to hear many times: " You can call me 'fagot', go ahead. But make sure you call me 'rich fagot' . " The book gave rise to a television 'biopic' in 2000, in which the African-American Leon gave life to the pianist and singer.

The debate around Little Richard's homosexuality has been a constant in the oral history of rock. Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Lemmy of Motörhead talked about it in detail in the documentary about the latter.

In an interview on David Letterman's talk show in the early 1980s, Richard gave another of his compliments: "God has given me victory. I am no longer gay, but I have been all my life. I also think that I was one of the first to go out. But the Lord has let me know what He did to Adam with Eve, not Steve. " A decade later, in 'Penthouse' he came to say the same thing but the other way around in 'Penthouse': "I have been gay all my life and I know that God is a God of love, not hate". And in the year 2000 he gave an interview with 'Chicago Tribune' with great phrases, but not very clarifying: "People call me 'fag'. But I call their attention," he said. " I'm not a fag. I'm just beautiful."

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