The pop star and LGBTQ activist – whose first book, How to Be a Gay Man, is coming out next year – will answer your questions on Monday 2 September

4.19pm BST

It’s wild to think that we’re coming up on almost 20 years since Will Young entered the public eye. In 2002, he beat Gareth Gates to win Pop Idol – and a brilliant British pop star was born. Since then, Young has travelled pretty far from the machine-tooled pop industrial complex: his latest album, Lexicon, is his seventh, and first for an independent label (Cooking Vinyl).

In recent interviews, Young has spoken about how liberating he has found independence. (“At 40, my new thing is: oh, fuck off,” he recently told the i.) He also ditched his management team and found that the resulting calm reinvigorated his love of pop – aided by collaborators including Richard X and Eg White. Lexicon, he says, is about fun and freedom rather than digging too deep personally, and it sounds like welcome relief after a difficult period. In 2016, he withdrew from Strictly Come Dancing, citing his anxiety, depression and PTSD. He suffered personal losses and professional compromises and, in 2017, said he was going to quit pop.