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"So even though he was a fan favourite from pretty much the beginning, &amp;#039;Sexuality&amp;#039; week was just too much for Cameron and he chose to exit the competition. After we&amp;#039;d stopped gasping in shock, Cameron got on the phone to chat to reporters about his time on the show. Read on to find out what he had to say about his decision to leave, whether he&amp;#039;s planning to stay in the music business, and what it&amp;#039;s really like to be slusheed... Before you joined the show, did you think your belief was going to be such a big factor? &amp;quot;Going into it I always knew obviously that I did have strong beliefs and I had strong convictions and I knew there were going to be moments and times when that was going to be tested, but I thought everything would be OK. But as I went through the show and the weeks passed and the things like the kissing thing happened... I knew I was going to stand firm to my beliefs no matter what, so in the end it definitely was a decision because of what I believe in and how I wanted to portray myself and the lines that I want to draw.&amp;quot; When was it that you decided to leave - was it just the Sexuality week, or had you been thinking about it before that? &amp;quot;It wasn&amp;#039;t a decision that I made on the fly. It wasn&amp;#039;t something that I just decided, &amp;#039;Oh, you know what, I&amp;#039;m just going to quit, I don&amp;#039;t want to do this, this wasn&amp;#039;t for me&amp;#039;. I guess it really started those last few weeks. I was in the bottom three every week and it was really hard and mentally draining and physically draining and emotionally draining and I just thought to myself, &amp;#039;Maybe this isn&amp;#039;t for me&amp;#039;. Everyone else worked so hard and everyone else is incredibly talented and they love to act and they love to sing and to dance and I just kept thinking to myself, &amp;#039;Well, I&amp;#039;ve worked incredibly hard to be here and I deserve to be here but maybe there&amp;#039;s just something else out there for me&amp;#039;. One door closes, another door always opens, and I was just really at peace with finally making that decision. It wasn&amp;#039;t something that I thought about since the beginning of the competition, but I would say it was in the last two weeks. I was definitely thinking about it. But going into &amp;#039;Sexuality&amp;#039; and even performing for Ryan I wasn&amp;#039;t sure what I was going to do yet. I hadn&amp;#039;t made up my mind. But when we started talking I just realised, &amp;#039;You know what, maybe there&amp;#039;s something else out there for me&amp;#039;. It sounds hard to hear that I would give that up, a spot on Glee, but I felt like it was the right decision and I felt strong in my beliefs about it and I felt like it would be the best for me.&amp;quot; When Ryan Murphy came to speak to you, he seemed to suggest the show would respect your boundaries, but you still decided to leave. Why? &amp;quot;That was an incredibly tough decision. In those moments I&amp;#039;d been away from home for a long time and obviously it was really emotional and stressful and I was tired and worn out - I was just drained. When Ryan came down to talk to me, first of all I had no idea he was going to say that. I mean, that&amp;#039;s pretty cool, that he would stick up for me like that. He hasn&amp;#039;t done that for anybody else. I thought that was really special and I feel like now me and Ryan have a mutual respect for each other. I think that when he came down to talk to me I kind of already made up my mind. I talked to him and said, &amp;#039;Do you think you can let me leave?&amp;#039; and he&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;No, I think I should make that decision for you&amp;#039; and I was like, &amp;#039;OK&amp;#039;, so I go downstairs and he meets me down there. At that point, after I&amp;#039;d already shared that and shared my heart and how I felt about it, I didn&amp;#039;t - even though he supported me, it meant the world to me - but I didn&amp;#039;t really feel like it was fair for me to talk about how I didn&amp;#039;t think I wanted to be there. What if I would have said yes and Damian went home? That would have broken my heart and I feel like they wouldn&amp;#039;t deserve that if I wasn&amp;#039;t fully into making it on Glee. I guess that&amp;#039;s why I wanted to stick by my convictions. Even though they were willing to respect them, which means the absolute world to me, I still felt like maybe it was time. Because then it didn&amp;#039;t have so much to do with, &amp;#039;Oh well, I just don&amp;#039;t want to kiss this girl&amp;#039;, it was more of, &amp;#039;Well, I&amp;#039;ve loved every second I&amp;#039;ve been on the show but at the same time I think it&amp;#039;s time to go, I think it&amp;#039;s time to let them move onto the rest of the five&amp;#039;. I think I just realised that it was time for me to move on - not in a bitter way, not, &amp;#039;Oh, I hate Glee, I don&amp;#039;t want to be an actor, I hate Ryan&amp;#039;, it was more just I felt like it was time.&amp;quot; Robert said before the video shoot that there wasn&amp;#039;t anything you had to do - do you feel like he was being insincere, as you were under pressure to kiss Hannah?  &amp;quot;I thought about that. Robert is seriously the most genuine person I&amp;#039;ve ever met in my entire life. I know they say it on the show, but him and Zach and Ryan and Nikki, honestly they root for every single one of us. I don&amp;#039;t have to say anything like this - this is how I truly feel. He is so incredibly nice and he wants us all to succeed. He doesn&amp;#039;t like to put us in the bottom three - it broke his heart every week when he had to give us criticism because he thought we all were great. He just had to do that, it&amp;#039;s part of his job. And I don&amp;#039;t think that he was being insincere. He was honest and they weren&amp;#039;t mad at me when they asked me to kiss Hannah. I think the reason I got so much heat for it was probably what happened, how I said no, and I&amp;#039;m sure part of them was disappointed because they wanted to see me succeed and to push through it and to do it. But at the same time I know Robert&amp;#039;s proud of me for how I stood up to him - he&amp;#039;s told me. I don&amp;#039;t know if it shows, but he is, and we have a good relationship. He is a really great guy and he was a great guy to all of us. I don&amp;#039;t think he was being insincere, I think he truly cares and he just wanted to see me succeed. When they do have criticisms, when they do have things to say you don&amp;#039;t necessarily want to hear, it&amp;#039;s the truth. I just think he&amp;#039;s an incredibly genuine guy and I think he&amp;#039;s incredibly sincere with what he says.&amp;quot; What does it feel like saying no to Ryan Murphy? &amp;quot;Well, it takes some balls, let me tell you! It&amp;#039;s one of the hardest decisions I&amp;#039;ve ever had to do. Here&amp;#039;s Mr Hollywood, everyone wants a piece of him, he&amp;#039;s got one of the biggest shows on TV, and here he is telling me, &amp;#039;Cameron, I want you to stay&amp;#039; and then I&amp;#039;m having to tell him no. I haven&amp;#039;t talked to him since it&amp;#039;s been over but I really think we ended on a good note. It was a respectful note, it was, &amp;#039;OK, I respect your decision, I&amp;#039;m sorry to see you go but I&amp;#039;m proud of the way you stuck up for yourself&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; How did Damian react when he found out you&amp;#039;d basically saved him? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s really crazy, because Damian&amp;#039;s not really an emotional guy. He&amp;#039;s a great guy, he&amp;#039;s a great friend, but you don&amp;#039;t see him get upset that often on the show. He was always very even keel, very calm, collected, didn&amp;#039;t freak out a lot, just very put together. I remember telling him sitting there, and just the look on his face was absolute shock. We were close but at the same time he didn&amp;#039;t know that any of this was going on, so when I told him he was very upset. He&amp;#039;s not going to be the one that breaks down and cries, he&amp;#039;s not going to be a hot mess like Hannah, but it was a very very sad goodbye. He said something like I&amp;#039;m giving him my shot, and I think that&amp;#039;s really cool and that&amp;#039;s a testament to our friendship. I&amp;#039;d be willing to do anything for him and I&amp;#039;m glad it was him that I saved. I&amp;#039;m really, really glad, and we&amp;#039;ll always be friends. It&amp;#039;s just very sad, it&amp;#039;s like saying goodbye to your best friend. It&amp;#039;s really hard, it&amp;#039;s like a brother. But at the same time it made my decision a lot easier on me to know that I just saved my best friend, and how often do you get to do that?&amp;quot; A lot of people are interested in you and your girlfriend - are you still together? &amp;quot;Yeah, we are still together, we&amp;#039;re still going strong. We&amp;#039;ve been dating for almost two years now. She&amp;#039;s been great through the entire thing, just really respectful and understanding. It&amp;#039;s hard to know, because you can&amp;#039;t talk to her about it - that&amp;#039;s why you have me on camera saying I felt like I cheated, all this stuff that really worried me, but at the same time she knew everything was OK. She respected everything I did, she&amp;#039;s really proud of me, of the way I handled things and the way I stuck up for myself, so yeah, we&amp;#039;re doing great.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s the biggest thing you learned from The Glee Project?  &amp;quot;I guess that&amp;#039;s easy - the greatest thing I learned about myself is definitely I do have boundaries and everyone got to see that first hand. That&amp;#039;s something that I&amp;#039;ve always had. I&amp;#039;ve always had strong beliefs in what I will and won&amp;#039;t do and everyone differs - everyone has their different boundaries. I knew what I believed in but at the same time I had never been pushed like that before with the whole kissing thing, with the whole being sexual. I had never acted, I had never done anything like that, so I had no idea how I was going to react if someone asked me to do that because I&amp;#039;d never had to think about it. I&amp;#039;m used to singing songs, not kissing girls on stage, and that&amp;#039;s something I just have not been used to so when it happened I really had to dig deep within myself and I really had to learn in a very short amount of time, &amp;#039;Well, Cameron, is this going to be OK with you? Is this something that you want? Where&amp;#039;s your line?&amp;#039; I think I figured it out and that&amp;#039;s definitely one of the best things I&amp;#039;ve ever done because I feel like if you don&amp;#039;t stand for something you won&amp;#039;t stand for anything and so I&amp;#039;m glad I learned that about myself. I feel like I grew up a lot. Whether people agree or disagree with what I did or how I handled it, I feel like I did what was best for me and I&amp;#039;m really proud of myself for the way that I kind of grew up on the show.&amp;quot; What was your favourite moment from the show? &amp;quot;My favourite moment would be when we did &amp;#039;Can&amp;#039;t Touch This&amp;#039; by MC Hammer. Obviously I cannot dance whatsoever and so that was really tough for me, but I&amp;#039;ll never forget we were sitting in the holding area waiting to go out and dance, and we were getting dressed and all that kind of stuff, and Damian walks out and he is wearing the most ridiculous... he looks like the Irish Eminem. It just absolutely cracked me up because he looked so funny. He&amp;#039;s wearing the glasses and his line is like, &amp;#039;Yo, I told you homeboy&amp;#039;. It was just so funny watching this Irish guy trying to be a gangsta and it really, really just made me happy.&amp;quot; Before you sang &amp;#039;Blackbird&amp;#039; you said it really related to you - how? &amp;quot;The song is one of my all time favourites. It&amp;#039;s just a classic. I grew up listening to it and I really relate to that opening line that says, &amp;#039;Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly&amp;#039;. I feel like in life I&amp;#039;ve been pushed down a lot, told I couldn&amp;#039;t do this or I wasn&amp;#039;t the right kind of voice or I dressed funky or I didn&amp;#039;t have enough character or I wasn&amp;#039;t nice enough or I was too good, I just got all this criticism from a lot of people in my life and I feel like sometimes I just felt like the blackbird, the ugly duckling. It&amp;#039;s really weird, but when I think of the song I picture after some fight or some battle this person singing on their porch singing the song. Paul McCartney, he was probably doing drugs when he wrote this song so I don&amp;#039;t know what it means to him! But I just picture this really beautiful scene, kind of like it was on Glee, and I just relate to that being alone feeling, feeling like you&amp;#039;re the only one that understands. Sometimes you just have to fly to get out of a situation, to get away, to be somebody you have to get away. Leaving home is also something that&amp;#039;s really hard and I think about one day I&amp;#039;m going to have to pack up and leave and go do something big and that decision&amp;#039;s going to be really hard. I mean, it relates to my life in a lot of ways but I would say that, definitely.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s it like getting slusheed? &amp;quot;Oh my... It was literally the worst feeling I&amp;#039;ve ever had in my entire life. I know when it hit me I literally could not breathe. It was absolutely terrifying. I loved slushees before the show - I would go to 7/11 and get a Coke and Dr Pepper slushee, I would love blue raspberry, I loved slushees. I love sugar in general. But after the show I have not touched a single one, so that should tell you something. It&amp;#039;s just like that nightmare that won&amp;#039;t ever go away and you&amp;#039;ll always have that. Because I got sprayed by that dumb locker and I just went numb and I couldn&amp;#039;t breathe and I forgot what I was singing and it just turned into this awful disaster all because of a tasty treat, and I will never forget that!&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;ve had a great reaction from fans - has that surprised you? &amp;quot;Yeah actually, it has surprised me. I knew that I would have some fans, but the fact that I&amp;#039;ve had so much response from the fans and everyone in general about the support and how they think I&amp;#039;m cool and how I&amp;#039;m this great nerd and all of that stuff, I never would have dreamed of that. My biggest fan is my mum and that&amp;#039;s been my only fan for a really long time, so having people support me and buying my songs and listening to me and hanging on my every word on Twitter and just dying to get a response from me - I&amp;#039;m not used to that and it really makes me feel like I&amp;#039;m doing something right. I love it.&amp;quot; What has The Glee Project done for you?  &amp;quot;The obvious answer would be that it&amp;#039;s changed me but honestly it has. This is the best TV show that I&amp;#039;ve ever seen and I&amp;#039;m not even biased. I mean, I am, but I think it&amp;#039;s an incredible show because it challenges you and it pushes you to be yourself. I just feel like a lot of us, especially teenagers and kids, we go through life and we don&amp;#039;t really ever figure out how to be ourselves. We&amp;#039;re always trying to please a boss or always trying to please a coworker or something and I feel like sometimes we lose sight of who we are. The Glee Project has brought that back for me and for everyone else on it. We realised that especially on Glee it&amp;#039;s about their stories and it&amp;#039;s about how they grow and it&amp;#039;s about how they learn from their mistakes and all kinds of stuff like that, and I feel like it really has changed my life. It&amp;#039;s made me a better performer and singer and actor and dancer obviously - that&amp;#039;s why I came on the show, to hone those skills. But at the same time you learn to be a better person. It changes you in more ways than just your skill. People watch me now and they support me and I have, like, this audience, so now I want to use it to the best of my ability. Before I didn&amp;#039;t have that and now I&amp;#039;m really blessed and thankful to have that and I just feel like after the show I&amp;#039;m so well-equipped to go into the future, to go out into the business, whatever it is, and succeed.&amp;quot; You performed an original song on the show - where do you plan to take your songwriting now? &amp;quot;I love to write songs. Honestly, it sounds terrible, I mean, it sounds like everybody, but when I write it&amp;#039;s usually about a girl. It just always ends up that way - I don&amp;#039;t know how to write about anything else. I mean, I can write a song about being mad at my parents but it normally doesn&amp;#039;t work out, but if it&amp;#039;s about a girl it&amp;#039;s beautiful. I would love to be on a music label one day. I know everyone thinks I wasn&amp;#039;t a very good actor on the show and honestly, I wasn&amp;#039;t, but I&amp;#039;d love to continue to do acting. I&amp;#039;d love to learn and be more comfortable with it because one day, honestly, I&amp;#039;d love to end up on Glee. Maybe right now just wasn&amp;#039;t the time, but I would honestly love to be able to still work with Ryan Murphy and work with everybody. I&amp;#039;d absolutely love that.&amp;quot; What are your plans for the immediate future - this week and next week? &amp;quot;I think right now music has always been my first love, songwriting and making music and playing the guitar. And I definitely think that&amp;#039;s going to be my focus for right now. I&amp;#039;m not opposed to acting and I want to be able to act and one day that might happen for me, but for right now music is kind of tugging at me. I&amp;#039;m writing every day, I live basically writing music in a basement in my little studio, and that&amp;#039;s kind of what I&amp;#039;m doing now. I don&amp;#039;t have something mapped out right now and that&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;m going to work on and try to figure out because I know there&amp;#039;s going to be something out there for me - it&amp;#039;s going to be a matter of when and where. I just know it&amp;#039;s going to work out. For right now, I have songs on iTunes, I have songs on YouTube, and I&amp;#039;m just going to push that and try to continue to get my name out there and see where it goes from there.&amp;quot; You seemed very close to Damian on the show, but who do you want to win? &amp;quot;Well, I love Damian. Damian is like a brother and Hannah is like my sister, but honestly every single one of them is incredibly talented. They&amp;#039;re so incredibly talented and any one of them that wins is going to deserve it because they&amp;#039;ve worked so incredibly hard. But I told Damian, I said, &amp;#039;You owe me, you owe me big!&amp;#039;&amp;quot; The Glee Project continues on Sundays at 9/8c on Oxygen in the US and on Wednesdays at 8pm on Sky1 in the UK. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-glee-project/interviews/a332784/the-glee-project-7th-eliminee-qa/>