Mika is a closeted gay man in 1950s Italy in the new music video for “Sanremo” off his new studio album My Name is Michael Holbrook. Michael Holbrook is the British singer-songwriter's real name.
In the clip, directed by W.I.Z., Mika leaves his wife and daughter behind to visit the underground dives of a city where sailors pour milk down the muscles of flexing men, clergymen pass with wandering eyes, and creamy torsos are delicately tickled with flowers.
Said W.I.Z. to Billboard: “[The clip takes place in] an era when homosexuality, if not illegal, was socially unacceptable, a time of discrimination and persecution. ‘Sanremo' represents his utopian dream, a fictional place of liberation and transcendence.”
