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Interview with Chely Wright

As the first country music star to come out as gay, Chely Wright‘s recent announcement has both historic and cultural significance. In her new memoir, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer, Wright captures her struggle to accept her sexuality as a young girl growing up in rural Kansas and as an acclaimed singer/songwriter in Nashville with chart-topping hits like “Shut Up and Drive” and “Single White Female.”

This lifelong struggle ultimately led Wright to lose her partner of twelve years and to contemplate suicide. After suffering a breakdown, which she now refers to as a “breakthrough,” Wright has reemerged with a new perspective, a notable album and an inspiring story to tell.

AfterEllen.com recently spoke with Wright about her memoir Like Me, her new album Lifted Off the Ground, and why her coming out is not a “publicity stunt.” AfterEllen.com: This was not a tentative coming out. A new album on Vanguard Records produced by Rodney Crowell. A book published by Random House. What has surprised you the most about your coming out experience? Chely Wright: I didn’t realize how many people would identify with my story. So many people have handed me letters or stood on line and told me that they have read their story within my story. When you’re in hiding – and I don’t know if you’ve ever been in hiding, Heather –

AE: Of course I have. CW: Right? I don’t guess that anyone gay has an easy time with it. We’re all so the same. But when you’re in hiding, what you long for is to identify with somebody. I’ve had so many people, young and old, say to me, “I would have given anything to have been able to go to a library and check this book out. It would have been so comforting to know that there is another human being who had a story like mine.”

I named the book Like Me for that reason because I knew it would be of some comfort to a young person to read a story and to see that there was someone else like them. But it’s blown my mind how many more people like me there are. It’s been bigger than I thought it would be – and more emotional.

AE: In Like Me you capture how isolated your life was with your partner Julia because you two felt you couldn’t reveal your relationship. During that time, did you ever seek out books or films that featured lesbian characters? If only to have that reflection or confirmation of identity? Did you watch The L Word or, I don’t know, secretly read Sarah Waters? CW: There was one bookstore in Nashville that had gay books and I would never have walked in the front door of it. I’m not that well versed at ordering books online so as far as buying books, no. But when The L Word came out, my partner and I – God, I can remember how crazy this was – we would go to a place in Nashville and sneak in and buy the box set of the L Word. We would always buy it around Thanksgiving and it was what we would do during the holidays. We would catch up on the season before. I remember our being strategic about going to the checkout counter. I would walk to the car and she would pay for it. That’s the degree to which we would hide.

I wouldn’t even buy a kd lang or an Indigo Girls record in Nashville. If I were to go into Tower Records at that time, the kids who worked there would say, “Chely, can you sign this record?” or “Sign this poster from the in-store that you did three years ago.” I was recognized.

So when my partner and I would go buy the box set of The L Word, we would walk in, look around and grab it, and she would pay for it and I’d go to the car. But we reveled in watching it because we would see our story, we would see our togetherness, a glimpse of our life in those storylines. So, yes, we did seek that out. It was tragic in a way. It was almost torture to see those storylines; comforting and torturous.

AE: Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf from TVgals are filming a documentary about your coming out experience. How did that come to be? CW: It started when I started my book. I had been chronicling my breakdown, which I call my breakthrough now, in musical form and in songs that I had written. Mind you, I was making this record before I decided to come out. Rodney didn’t know I was gay. I didn’t come out until halfway through the creation of this album, so these songs weren’t written after I decided to come out.

I had an audio version of this emotional experience and I had started writing a book about it, and I guess I wanted to see what it looked like. So I put a video camera up on my mantle a couple of days into starting the book and I did a video blog diary for myself. I have one in particular where I’m talking about the day that I started writing about my partner in the book. I was crying. I was saying that I was writing about her – and, of course her name is not Julia, I changed her name – I was crying and I said, “I’m writing about her and I’m not crying because I’m sad, I’m just crying because I’m so emotional.”

When I went to visit with a guy in New York [to talk about marketing to a gay audience], on the wall there was a poster that said, Be Real, and I said, “Oh my gosh, I saw that film on Logo. It stunned me and inspired me.” He said, “I know the women who did that film.” I said, “Well, I’ve been doing video blogs of my experience,” and he said, “You have to show these women.” So I made an appointment to meet with them. What were just simple video diaries became the unfolding of, basically, “We have to film this, this has to be a film.” That’s how that began. I didn’t have the concept for a film. I just had a video compilation of my experience with coming out, just my personal video diaries. AE: Actually, I was watching some of the older video blogs on your website from before you came out and I know this might sound odd, but after watching you on Oprah and hearing you at the reading the other night, it occurred to me how much more articulate you are right now. Maybe this is just the benefit of hindsight, but it almost seems like in those earlier video blogs you’re not fully revealing yourself or you’re almost physically holding something back. It struck me that it must have been difficult to keep this a secret while working on the book. CW: Well, you’re probably pretty damn perceptive, Heather. I’m not surprised that shows up in my video blog. It’s really hard to try to be open with people, yet hold that back. You’re trying to video blog to your fans, “Hey, here’s what’s going on today. I went to a show and did that,” but meanwhile eight hours of that day I was writing a book about coming out. Can you image the duplicity? I’m trying to be an honest person. I’m trying to be forthright with my fans – “I can’t wait for you to hear my record” and “I can’t wait to get back on the road”- but, really, at the root of it all, what’s bubbling and brewing is that I’m about to come out. And that’s the lie that I was working with my entire career. It’s hard.

One of the things that’s been so hard for me since I’ve come out is that I’ve had a couple of people say to me-they don’t know that it’s such an insult but it is, and you’ll understand this because you’re a woman who at some point hid your being gay-but I’ve had a couple of people say to me, “Oh, I could never have hidden that. I’m not that good of a liar.” They don’t realize that that’s such an insult to me [but] I want to say to them, “If you had to be a liar, you would’ve been, if you had to for your survival.” It’s like saying to someone, “I could never shoplift and steal.” Well, if you had starving children, you would go into a store and steal food to feed your children.

Do you think, in my nature, that I’m really that good of a liar? I was such an honest kid. I was the kid who woke [my parents] up at midnight, crying, and said, “I’m the one who left the lid off the jelly jar.” That’s who I am in my heart. But when you’re forced to lie-told you’re going to get the crap kicked out of you and you’re not going to achieve your dreams and society hates your guts without ever having met you-and you have to lie, [then] you have to become a skilled liar. You know what I’m saying?

AE: Absolutely. On the flip side of that, I also think it’s remarkable that for so many years you didn’t tell your closest friends that you were gay because you didn’t want them to have to lie for you. There’s profound loneliness and aloneness in that – loneliness and aloneness are two different things, of course, but in a way you experienced both. CW: Yes, and I know that they don’t mean it to be an insult, but it cuts me completely to the marrow of my bone.

AE: Oh, Chely, you’re going to hear a lot of things from well-intended people who don’t “mean” to insult you. CW: That’s why it’s just so good that I stay off-line. There’s some nastiness out there. Friends of mine from high school will email me and go, “I can’t believe so and so wrote this on your webpage,” and then they’ll copy and paste it in the email and I’m like, God, please don’t send me that. I guess someone wrote, “I question someone’s motives who would come out with such a shocking news announcement on the same week that they have a book and a record coming out.” Well, the book is my coming out story.

I kind of want to say to those people in Nashville, or anywhere, who are saying that this is a publicity stunt – because I’m a smart ass at heart and I’m trying really hard to just keep taking the high road – but what I really want to say is, Okay, you, too, can pull this “publicity stunt” off. I’ll show you how: First of all, you really have to be gay; second of all, you really have to have hidden your entire life; third of all, you really have to lose the love of your life; fourth, you have to hit rock bottom; fifth, you have to write an entire record – not eleven songs, but forty songs and then pare it down to eleven songs; then you have to move to New York City from your amazing home in Nashville to a one bedroom apartment; oh, and by the way, then you have to start a book without the promise of a book deal; you have to go on blind faith that someone is going to buy your book; you have to crawl on the floor in your emotions and write a book that doesn’t really make you out to be a hero; you have to confess your crimes against other people; you have to admit all of the bad s–t you’ve done; and you have to come out as a gay woman – that does not help your record sales, contrary to what people may accuse you of-and you have to step forward and be ridiculed and be called a “sinner” and a “pervert,” and you, too, can do this. That’s all you have to do. But you really have to be gay.

AE: That’s the first step. CW: [Laughs]. That’s the first step. But if you really want to pull this “publicity stunt” off, knock yourself out.

AE: I agree. I think you’ve actually addressed that accusation pretty clearly here. To be honest, I find the “publicity stunt” comment pretty shallow and lacking in emotional intelligence. If I were you, I wouldn’t even address it. CW: You’re right.

AE: Not that you’re asking my opinion, but there it is. CW: [Laughs] But I really am gay.

AE: Well, good, we’re glad. How did the process of making the album change once you did come out to Rodney? CW: That’s a great question. It got so much more profound. The making of the record was going so well before, but if it was going at an eight-ten being the most pleasurable, coalesced, artistic – it became a fifteen. It got so gooey and beautiful and our whole team, we just got into a deep emotional groove and it got really good and it all just came together.

Making a record is such an intimate experience. It’s like a marriage that lasts a couple of years. Can you imagine making such a personal record with someone and their not knowing that I’m gay? I’ve made seven with people who don’t have any idea who I am. So the minute I told my truth to Rodney, all of the colors became brilliant and calibrated. All of the truth, everything lined up and started to make more sense. I think if anything makes sense on this record, it’s because of that. I know that artists go, “This record is the best I’ve ever made.” I don’t say that about all of my records. I don’t think I’ve gotten better with every record. I think the Let Me In record, my first on MCA, was my best record before this one. I now think this is my best record. AE: It is a beautiful record. CW: Thanks. I hope I don’t have to go through this again to make another good record. I have yet to write without boundaries. Someone said, “Are you going to write songs with ‘she’ and ‘she’ in it?” And I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to write. The song “Like Me,” which is clearly me with another woman, I held back from Rodney.

The day I came out to him, I said, “Rodney, there’s one song I’ve held back from you that I believe is the emotional musical centerpiece of all the songs I’ve written, but I held it back because I knew you’d be able to tell that I’m gay from it.” I sent it to him on that day and that was the same day I started my book. I emailed him the song, opened my laptop and wrote the title page of my book. If I can write songs like that, that just tell the truth, I think I’ll be doing all right.

AE: Many people have asked you whether you’ve heard from Brad Paisley, whom you write about in the book, but I’m curious about the women in your book. You write about how being closeted affected many of your relationships. Have you heard from any of the women that you discuss in the book – your mom or Julia or Kristin? CW: My mom and I have spoken. We did speak the day I flew to Chicago to film the Oprah show. My mom thinks that this is a sin. My mom thinks that this is a choice that I should not make. But this is not a shock to me. This is why I didn’t tell my mother. It’s disappointing. As I wrote in the book, this would be disappointing to me and hurtful, but what I’m choosing to focus on in that news from her is that there are young people out there who are getting that singular message from their parents.

I’m fortunate that I have a support system of people around me and I know better. I know that this is not a choice for me. I am focusing on the fact that there is a fifteen-year-old girl or boy out there [and] that this is the only message that they are getting. So it galvanizes me. It lights my fire when I hear that from my mother. I love my mother very much. This is not a referendum on my mother-her love for me or my love for [her]. This is just a matter of ideology and what she believes religiously and what I know in my heart: I was born this way.

And as for as Julia, I reached out to her before this news became public. She and I have marginal correspondence. We’ve owned a property together for a long time. But as far as rekindling a romance, I think I thought up until early this year that there would be no other woman for me but her, but I think I’m starting to let that go.

Heather, I’ve been working with my therapist a lot on this and I think my attachment to that relationship has been – and, by the way, I have not told anyone this, and this is not off the record because it’s AfterEllen.com and I know the demographic to whom I’m speaking – I think my attachment to my relationship to Julia is very complex and I believe that part of the reason why I’ve had trouble letting that go is I’ve just revisited the entire relationship in writing. I’ve fallen in love with her again and I’ve suffered the trauma of the breakup again.

I think I’ve been holding onto the hope that we would get back together because I would love more than anything to go back and un-break both of our hearts. I know now that I cannot do that. It’s not my job to do it. And she’s not out and I cannot be with a person who is not out. I’m not even saying that she wants me back. I don’t know what her feelings are about me or where she is in her life or how she feels about me right now. I mean, you can read it in my book. You can tell at the end of the book that I’m kind of pinning for that relationship.

AE: Certainly the title of the book, Like Me, connects to the relationship. CW: Yes.

AE: It took three years for you to write the book and record the album. Did you wonder during that time if another country music singer would come out before you? CW: No, not really. I guess I reconciled that if somebody else does then good for them. It certainly wasn’t a race to be the first and if someone else did I would have had to tip my hat and be incredibly supportive and honor that. There’s a lot that comes with it. There’s an incredible responsibility, there are a lot of emotions. It scoops you out emotionally, it fills you up.

People may look at it as, “Wow, you get an interview in The Advocate,” and certainly no one ever imagined we’d get a call from Oprah Winfrey – except, actually, I did. None of this surprises me. Somebody asked me, “Can you believe you’re on the Rosie O’Donnell show?” And, yes, I can, because when I sat down to write my book, I knew what I was writing and I knew it was interesting because I had lived it. This doesn’t shock me. You do get [press] when you come out as an openly gay artist in country music. But there’s a lot more to it. You also get a lot of hate mail. You get a lot of s–t. And that’s okay. If people want to disparage me, at least I’m in truth.

AE: I’m curious how many people who are making these disparaging comments have actually read your book. CW: If you’ve read my book, you know that I didn’t really write myself as the heroine. It was not easy to write the crappy stuff I did. When you sit down and write a memoir, you can write yourself as, “Oh, look at how great I am and look at this and look at that,” but as I told Oprah, to write down your crimes and the lies you told – writing down the sentence, “I became a skilled liar,” was a hard sentence to write. It was difficult.

AE: So what’s next for you? You’ve done the Ellen show and you have the GLAAD Media Awards coming up. CW: And I have the GLSEN Awards, which I’m super excited about. There’s so much coming up. I’m terrifically excited. Serving on the board of Faith in America is exciting for me. Singing my songs is really exciting because at the root of it all, that’s who I am. I happen to be a gay musician. I know for a while my gayness will eclipse my being a musician, and that’s okay. I signed up for that and I’m eager to be a poster child for as long as I need to be and am able to be because it’s an honor. I want to wear all the hats I am able to wear without hitting a wall. I get to do a lot of pride events this year and we’re working on pulling all of those together.

But more than anything, God, I just want to walk with my head held up high and to focus on the positive and to read the letters that have been coming in. I’m so excited to meet everybody on the road and shake hands and really be proud to be entirely myself.

I’ve heard a couple of people say, “Well, it’s no surprise to us in Nashville, we all knew she was gay.” Well, I hate to break it to them in Nashville, but I didn’t come out to those who thought they knew I was gay. I came out for the people who would never, ever have heard that I’m gay.

That’s the most compelling thing that I would like to get across: whispers don’t make it to the corners of America. Nashville is pretty privy to the rumor mill and I didn’t do this for those who thought they knew. I did this for the young people and the not so young people. The young people whose parents think I’m a great gal-well, I’m still a great gal and I’m a lesbian. I always have been.

AE: Also, being the subject of a whisper or a rumor is not the same as holding your head up high. CW: Absolutely.

AE: What about touring with the album? CW: We will be touring in the fall. We have a lot of book and record signings to do and lots of publicity things [to do], but we’re hoping to be out playing and singing in the fall. My management team is working on landing me in the right venues because we’re still not sure, I mean, I’ve got this country music fan base and we’re still trying to find out how many of them will be there. That will determine the venues. You know, I’ve lost a considerable amount of the fan base that I’ve always been able to rely on. So we’ll see.

AE: You’ve also found a lot of new fans as well. CW: I agree, and I’m loving it.

Follow Chely Wright on Twitter and get more information about her book tour and other updates on her Facebook page.

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