Melissa Etheridge publicly came out as a lesbian at the 1993 presidential inauguration, she says it was a “different world.”
“It was a funny time because I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s in Kansas, and they didn’t even mention the word there was, there was no LGBT anything,” Etheridge, 63, exclusively told Us Weekly at iHeartMedia and P&G’s Can’t Cancel Pride. “And it was just ‘gay or lezzy’ and all the bad words, and you didn’t have anything that was worldwide.”
The “Come to My Window” singer ultimately found other queer people “in the cities” during the 1980s.
“We renovated cities and moved into them and we got stronger and stronger and we were working and making money — and there was still places where, ‘Oh, I can’t say I’m gay,’” Etheridge recalled. “And so there I was, I had been playing women’s festivals and women’s bars for years. I was out, people knew I was out. If you went to a concert of mine, the whole front two rows are screaming lesbians, and you know, it was kind of obvious. But it was a real ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ [situation].”
She continued, “Nobody asked me and I never told so, man, when [the Bill] Clinton inauguration came, I just said, ‘Hey, I’m gay.’ It was just, bam, there it was.”
Nearly 30 years later, Etheridge sees how the entire landscape has changed to become more open and inclusive.
“Man, we’ve got, like, gay channels now. We’ve got people that know how to make music and get music to gain communities,” she gushed. “You know, there was nothing 30 years ago, and gosh, visibility means everything. Coming out means everything, and it’s just a totally different world now, and it is so nice.”
Etheridge has since become a source of advice for many younger queer artists, including some who are still closeted.
“I have a lot of people that haven’t come out yet that still talk to me and really want to,” she told Us. “I just try to emphasize that, ‘Hey, look, I know you’re afraid of this or afraid of that, but it’s about your health. You’re gonna get sick if you keep doing what you love, but you feel like your whole being isn’t there.’”
In addition to supporting younger artists on their own coming out journeys, Etheridge is celebrating Pride Month this June — which isn’t that different than how she spends the rest of the year.
“[I celebrate Pride] just by being gay, just by what we’re doing,” she told Us of her festive plans. “My daughter does a lot of work for the gay community. She’s the one that’s out there. She gets banned books from publishers, and then she distributes them in communities down in Florida [and] Texas. … It makes such a difference in visibility and being able to read and see that we’re people and there’s community.”
Etheridge, who married Linda Wallem in 2014, shares kids Bailey, 27, and Beckett, who died in 2020, with ex Julie Cypher and twins Johnnie and Steven, 17, with ex Tammy Lynn Michaels.
Fans can tune in to Can’t Cancel Pride, produced by iHeartMedia and P&G, on iHeartRadio’s YouTube and Facebook pages, Hulu, Revry and The Advocate Channel on Wednesday, June 12, at 8 p.m. ET. The special will be available to stream throughout Pride Month.
With reporting by Kevin Zelman
