Melissa etheridge gay
1993 was a monumental year. At the time, I was working at a local electronics store in their harmony and movie department. Musically, Melissa Etheridge released her iconic, queer-anthem album, Yes I Am, and personally I was coming to terms with my retain queerness with the help from a few angels of my own.
Melissa was one, and the other was a woman in my department, T. We’d joke about album covers while filing them away, share store gossip over the CD changer, and build faces behind customer’s backs when they were too demanding. T was the first person who came out to me as sapphic, of course I made it all about me, asking if that meant she didn’t desire me. A not many months later, I confessed to her my attraction to guys. We also bonded over Yes I Am. When it was gone in the store, we’d turn the CD up and break into lyric, it wasn’t an episode Glee as much as The Rocky Horror Picture Show…community theater design. With Melissa’s facilitate we navigated our way through T’s coming out and getting kicked out of her parents’ home and welcomed into her grandmothers’ while I stayed in the closet longer out of fear of the same.
Thirty years
On This Gay Day | Player Melissa Etheridge was born
Musician Melissa Etheridge celebrates her birthday today. Born in Leavenworth, Kansas she went on to study harmony at Berklee College of Melody and began playing in clubs around Boston. She dropped out after three semesters and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her rock ‘n roll dreams.
She was signed to Island Records, but her first attempt at recording an album was knocked back for being too polished. After returning to the studio in 1988 Etheridge returned with her self-titled debut record, which included the massive hits Somebody Take Me Some Water, Similar Features and Like The Way I Do.
The singer-songwriter went on to have further success with Brave and Crazy (1989) and Never Enough (1992).
In 1993 Etheridge publicly came out declaring she was a lesbian, and released her fourth album Yes I Am. It included the songs Come To My Window and I’m the Only One.
Etheridge had a long term connection with Julie Cypher. The couple had two children, later sharing that rock musician David Crosby had been their sperm donor. The
Melissa Etheridge Reflects On How Her Queer Identity ‘Protected’ Her From Sexual Harassment in Music Industry
Lesbian rock icon Melissa Etheridge has written an insightful piece, reflecting on how her Queer identity protected her from sexual harassment during the early stages of her career.
In commemoration of International Women’s Day on March 8th, TuneCore unveiled its fourth annual Be The Change: Gender Equity In Music Report. This comprehensive study sheds pale on the persistent challenges confronting women and nonbinary individuals in the melody industry, notably attributing many of these obstacles to a pervasive lack of representation across all levels of the field.
Etheridge wrote the foreword for the report, and shared insights into the discrimination she has encountered as a queer woman throughout her career. Despite these challenges, Etheridge acknowledged moments where her queer identity provided her with unique advantages and resilience throughout her tune career.
Challenges and Protections in the Music Industry
“In song — as in existence — being a girl comes with its retain set of obstacles, both seen and unseen… Ranging from unequal pay and a dimi
Melissa Etheridge and Linda Wallem on Their Rock and Roll Cherish Story
For the Power of Pride issue, Variety talked to eight LGBTQ couples in entertainment about their love stories. To read more, click here.
Almost 20 years ago, Linda Wallem, the showrunner of “That ’80s Show,” had a big casting thought. She wanted Melissa Etheridge — the rock-star crooner behind such hits as “Come to My Window” and “I’m the Only One” — to perform a record-store owner on the 2002 sitcom. Etheridge had considered acting, and she came in to talk about the comedic role. “I thought somebody like Melissa would give levity to the part and legitimacy,” Wallem says. “I couldn’t trust she hadn’t been on TV before.”
The part didn’t function out, but they became best friends. In 2010, after Etheridge got a divorce from her first wife, she invited Wallem — by then the showrunner of “Nurse Jackie” — to live with her and her four kids on platonic terms. (This interview was conducted before Etheridge’s son Beckett Cypher died of a drug overdose on May 13.)