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Katie Melua: portrait of a not-quite-out star

Katie Melua is an incredibly private person. She also happens to be an incredibly talented musician who sold more than two million copies of her debut album, Call Off the Search in its first year. That was in 2003, when Melua was 19-years-old. Since then, she’s released two more successful albums, making her one of the UK’s biggest and most profitable musicians. So it’s inevitable that fans would be dying to know more about her.

Her first high-profile relationship was with Luke Pritchard, lead singer of English band The Kooks. They split up in 2006, but it only fueled more interested in Katie’s personal life.

When Melua began hanging around out photographer Lara Bloom, the gay rumors started: Is Katie Melua a lesbian? Is she bisexual? Are they just friends? That year, Sarah Warn wrote about the speculation:

“Katie’s very upfront and frank about herself and is completely comfortable about [her relationship with Lara].” But if she’s so comfortable and frank about it, why are they quoting anonymous sources instead of Katie herself?

Katie, herself, didn’t say anything about their relationship or her sexuality until 2008, when she only furthered rumors by answering the question “Are you gay?” with:

People can think whatever they like … I like to keep some mystique around my public image. In a sense, the less you give the better. I really try not to talk about my friends … They are all special, they are all stars in their own right and I love them specifically because they don’t want to be famous by association with me.

And in 2010, the answer hasn’t changed. In May, she told The Telegraph:

First of all, I can tell you that I’m single, which is not lovely, but it is what it is. I really don’t think whether you are gay or not is the whole identity of a person. It’s just one side; it doesn’t have to be the thing that defines you.

We live in the 21st century: questions of sexuality are not outdated, but I don’t think the lines are very clear and they are not always clear to me. I really want the songs to speak for themselves and not to be associated with a story about me.

Melua’s recently released album, The House, is dark and haunting with a few spots of brightness. But the songs on which she shines are those that show some sort of vulnerability, like “I’d Love to Kill You.” All of the songs on the album are devoid of pronouns, which I noted to Melua in our e-mail interview.

“I really wouldn’t want to confine the songs to specifics,” she said. “I want the songs to speak for themselves rather than be linked to a specific story of mine. I prefer it if people listen to the songs and relate to the lyrics in whatever way is relevant to their own life.

When it comes to discussing her sexuality, she’s still steadfast in not making any definitive statements.

“I am open about being a private person,” Melua said. “I have struggled in the past with the concept of fame and being famous. I prefer to keep a distance between my private life and my professional life and I am conscious that it is very easy for the lines between the two to be blurred.”

In other words, don’t look for a coming out statement from Melua anytime soon, although it isn’t hard to see her previous statements on sexuality as meaning anything but not straight.

“I think everyone has the right to choose,” Melua said about other musicians and public figures who decide to come out. “I don’t believe that sexuality is someone’s whole identity. It is one part of a person but that doesn’t have to be the thing that defines him or her.”

While that’s true, it’s sometimes hard to understand why public figures like Melua, Queen Latifah and Jodie Foster seem to create more of an issue about their sexuality by side-stepping direct questions about something that is just one part of their identity. Her statement that the private and professional lives are easily blurred is what complicates this as well. Many times, celebrities who say they are private will divulge other intimate thoughts, feelings or other parts of their lives in interviews or press junkets, but when it comes to their sexuality or who they are dating, stay mum. It can be confusing for fans and the press alike. Where are the lines drawn?

When Brandi Carlile came out in the Los Angeles Times last year, she said that she’d always been out but no one had ever asked her if she was gay before. But Brandi’s publicist refused most gay press until this year, and even then, questions about her partner were discouraged. It’s understandable that she isn’t interested in giving the details on her private relationship with her partner, but if she was open aobut being a lesbian, it’s sad that she’d be discouraged (even indirectly) from being able to speak about it.

So when Melua told The Telegraph she was single, it’s still part of her personal, private life. When she opens up about anything beside her music, it’s part of her private life. Are we wrong to want to know about her sexuality or who she is dating? Not necessarily – that kind of curiousity is in our celebrity-obsessed nature. But we also have to accept the answers we get when we have the opportunity to ask.

The difference between Melua and the aforementioned actresses is that both Queen Latifah and Jodie Foster have denied being gay and have made statements indicating that being lesbian would be a negative thing. Melua’s comments don’t make me feel as if she’s ashamed of any queerness she might (or probably) has within her. She’s not making defensive comments that she’s not gay or that she is definitely straight – if anything, she’s creating more mystery for herself, which is probably fueling more interest into her private life rather than diverting from it.

Katie Melua isn’t the only one that can be considered “sexually fluid” or “not quite straight.” La Roux’s Elly Jackson, Jillian Michaels and Kate Nash have all said they aren’t necessarily just into men. It hasn’t appeared to invite increased scrutiny, or to have negatively impacted their careers. Hopefully it’s a sign of the times that sexuality really isn’t a defining characteristic; that being a lesbian or bisexual or without a label is one thing on a long list of personal attributes – things fans and the press like to know about public figures in order to truly gauge their interest in someone beyond a likable song they sing or a performance in a film.

We’d likely have more respect for the famous figures who come out and say “Hey, I date women” and address it as just one facet of their life and, ultimately, their public persona. In the more recent cases of Sara Gilbert, Lindsay Lohan and Wanda Sykes, it’s something we celebrate and then move on from. They’re gay/bi, we get it – we love it. What’s next?

For Melua, a tour is next, and she promises that there won’t be much of a spectacle on stage; no dancers or costume changes like in her recent video for “The Flood.” In true Katie Melua form, she said there will be much more focus on the music: “The stars of the show should always be the songs.”

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