The big entertainment news is the coming out of country singer Chely Wright. While Chely is not an A-lister, she has had a pretty decent career in country music and was on MCA Records, the same label that was home to Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna Judd and Reba McEntire. Chely’s been out of music for about 5 years, with a new album release hitting tomorrow. Her most recent big success would have to be her “Bumper of My SUV” single. She also went number one on the country charts with the single “Single White Female.”
Over the course of her career, Chely has appeared in a Disney film and made various television talk show appearances on shows like “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and the Sean Hannity show. She has a charity, Reading, Writing and Rhythm, that puts on the biggest show/fan club party each year in Nashville during Fan Fair week. She also regularly visits the troops with other celebrities, like Kid Rock. She was even voted one of People magazine’s Most Beautiful People in 2001.
Some comments on Twitter and blogs are saying that it doesn’t matter that Chely came out. Why? Because they do not know who she is. The fact is that it DOES matter. Even though Chely has not released a record in 5 years doesn’t change the fact that she has had a fairly successful career as a mainstream country music artist. And country music is a genre that is notorious for its exclusion of “outsiders.” Think about it – how many popular black country singers can you name? Gay country singers?
A lot of press are touting that Chely is the first gay country singer, which has a lot of people saying “What about K.D. Lang?” True, Lang did a short stint in country music. However, Chely is the first mainstream country artist to come out as gay. Not to say that Lang coming out wasn’t important or a big deal, but Chely coming out is certain to have more of an impact on mainstream country music.
