Chely Wright's big announcement

Chely Wright has been in the news quite a bit this week as she has released a new autobiography, Like Me, and an album, Lifted Off The Ground, and oh by the way announced that she is a lesbian. This is viewed as a big career risk as country music fans are often generalized as a bunch of right-wing Bible beaters and as such are expected to shun her after this announcement. But is it really such a big risk? After all, she has already been out of the spotlight for several years and hasn't had a major hit since the Clinton Administration.

I'll say up front that as a Christian, I believe homosexuality is a sin and I disapprove of it.

But that's not what I want to talk about. What I'm more interested in is the timing of the announcement.


As I mentioned, Wright has largely been irrelevant since "Single White Female" was a number one hit in 1999. She did have another brief stint of getting attention when "Bumper of My SUV" caused a lot of people to lump her in with Toby Keith as a pariah for opponents of the Iraq War, but that was fairly short lived. As such, there really wasn't that big of a risk involved. There's no reason to fear that country radio will shut her out, because they already don't play her music. But there is a potential benefit in that the publicity could spur album and book sales.

Now please don't misunderstand, I don't question the authenticity of the admission and I'm sure she was indeed very conflicted about it.  But I do feel making such an announcement as part of the effort to sell books is the wrong way to go about it. If I could make a comparison, it strikes me similar to the way Jose Canseco got involved in baseball's steroid problem at the precise moment that he had a book to sell. Canseco's claims have largely been corroborated since, but it still feels very sleazy to many that he did it in such a way.

Ultimately, Chely Wright's sexuality is her business and shouldn't affect the way her music is judged. If people were fans of her when they thought she was straight, there's no reason they shouldn't still buy her albums now that they know she's a lesbian. Conversely, if someone didn't care for her stuff before but suddenly wants to become a fan just because of the announcement, that's silly.

How Chely Wright handles this situation in her private life is her own business, but publicly she should be judged no differently than any of her fellow country singers.