'I love you, but I love god more': David Archuleta's mum had difficulty accepting singer's sexuality

David Archuleta's mother quit her church after coming to terms with his sexuality.

The 32-year-old singer came out to his family as gay in 2014 but revealed in 2021 he was part of the LGBTQ+ community, but "not sure of [his] own sexuality", and while his mom Lupe Marie Mayorga initially had a "hard time" accepting her son for who he is because of her Mormon faith, she's slowly come round to being more supportive.

He told People magazine: "My mom had a hard time accepting my journey. At first, she said, 'DA, I love you, but I love god more. And marriage is between a man and a woman.' And I'm like, 'Mom, I understand.' Because that's what I believed up until a month before coming out.

"And I said, 'Mom, I don't need you to accept everything about my journey immediately. I just want you to be willing to walk along with me in this journey to learn alongside me,'" he continued. "And she said, 'Okay, I can do that.'

"So it was really sweet to see her now at the point where she said, 'I don't want to leave my family just to follow god.' She's like, 'I can follow god and accept my son.'"

The I'm Yours singer admitted being asked about balancing his faith and sexual orientation in an interview made him go public about quitting the Mormon faith and it later inspired his mother to do the same.

He added: "My mom said, 'I'm going to step away from the church.' And I was like, 'What?' And she just said, 'If you're going to hell, we're all going to hell together.'"

David previously recalled feeling "mad" about his sexuality and even prayed for something to change within himself before feeling a "flow of love and peace".

He told People last month: "I was still feeling mad until I was 30. I was like, 'No matter what I do, I don't know how to change this.'

"It got to a point where I was praying and I'm just like, 'God, if you are really there, please. I don't know what else to do. Am I cursed? Am I supposed to be unhappy for the rest of my life?'

"Finally, I felt this huge flow of love and peace, and it just said, 'David, you need to stop asking me this because you're asking me the wrong thing.

"You're asking me to change something that I don't intend to change. I created you this way, the way you were supposed to be, and you need to understand this.'

"That really changed my life because I thought I had to hate myself because there was this part of me that was wrong. When I learned to love that and embrace it and just allow it to be, I was like, 'Wow, I feel this love I never felt for myself ever.'"

ALSO READ: David Archuleta comes out as member of the LGBTQIA+ community