Melissa Etheridge is kicking off LGBTQ+ Pride Month with a poignant look back on her own journey to living truthfully. The two-time Grammy winner spoke to iHeart Radio for the Elton John Impact Awards this week, recalling her decision to publicly address her sexuality for the first time during former President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration festivities.
"It was the first time a presidential candidate had actually talked about being gay, not about him, but had said the words 'gay' and 'lesbian,'" she said. "I had never heard the words 'gay' and 'lesbian' on television, you know? It was the first time, and it was very exciting."
Following Clinton's inaugural address, Etheridge attended the Triangle Ball, which was organized by prominent LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, alongside fellow entertainers like Kate Clinton and felt emboldened by the celebratory rush.
"I got up and I said, 'Hey, I'm proud to be a lesbian.' And I went, 'Wow!'" she said. "And it was at the National Press Club, so ... the next day, way down at the bottom, it said: 'and Melissa Etheridge came out as a lesbian.'"
Though Etheridge's public declaration would help establish her as one of the music industry's most prominent LGBTQ+ entertainers, the reaction to her coming-out was somewhat muted at first. In fact, it wasn't until she unveiled her fourth studio album, the auspiciously titled Yes I Am, later that same year that the world at large began to take notice.
Though few openly LGBTQ+ artists were thriving in the mainstream at the time, Etheridge believes her sexuality made her "more of a headline story," which, in turn, generated immense buzz for Yes I Am, which featured the smash singles "Come To My Window" and "I'm The Only One." Etheridge picked up a Grammy in 1993 for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, for her song "Ain't It Heavy."
"It's hard to say in the music business, because things come and go," she said. "But it's a very, very, male, straight, white-dominated business. I choose not to look at the negative stuff. I just see that there was a whole lot of positive stuff that came out."
On the flip side, Etheridge said her family members, friends and musical peers were aware of her sexuality long before her announcement. Elsewhere in her iHeart Radio chat, she acknowledged an awkward interview with a publication called Music Express in the early 1990s in which the outlet's reporter changed all of her answers to suggest that her partner at the time was male.
"I was always very, very careful to say 'they, them, you.' My music was always genderless," she said. "It was the first time I was on the cover of something, and I opened it and read it, and everything ... he'd changed it to 'my boyfriend.' I was like, 'God!' Underground, people knew I was a lesbian ... It just horrified me."
Listen to Melissa Etheridge's full iHeart Radio interview here.
