I don’t often listen to country music but now I have a reason to listen to “Shut Up and Drive” as Chely Wright has secretly been living a life as a lesbian for almost twenty years. She came out as a lesbian on the Today Show, Joy Behar Show, and variety of other stations just as her new tell-all book Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer hits the bookstores. The book covers her rise to fame in country music and gives details of her struggle to come to terms with her identity as a gay woman.

Wright knew as a child that she was different and even prayed to God at the age of eight to be changed. She spent the next four decades hiding her attraction to other women. As her career took off, her anxiety increased for fear of her private life as lesbian being exposed. But she always knew she wanted to be a country singer and that helped her escape from the identity she could not accept. Chely’s romantic relationships with women were complicated because of her need to keep her life secret, which often left her alone and suicidal.

The turning point came in 2006 when she had a horrible breakup, causing Wright to consider ending her own life. She put a gun in her mouth and thought of reasons why she should continue to live. It was music that saved her life. Out of writing music came the goal to purge herself of her secrecy by writing her life story. She decided she could not live a lie anymore.

Chely has two worries about coming out later in life. One, she worries that gay people won’t understand why she didn’t do this a long time ago. I personally think she shouldn’t be so hard on herself. Its better to out yourself on your own terms even if it is later in life than to allow the media or police to out you in a compromising situation, such as George Michaels getting caught with his pants down in a public restroom while an undercover cop got a stiff look at his boner.

Her second worry is how her fans and fellow musicians will react since she has built a heterosexual facade over the years. She says that country fans tell Chely that they love her because they see her as being honest. She says it always hurt when fans told her that they could relate to her and felt like they knew her because they really didn’t know the biggest part of her life. She was not able to share that life with them. She loves her fans and she agonized over the decision to tell the truth about her personal life. Her worry is that they might feel tricked in some way or that she was pretending to be someone she never was. She makes a point of saying that she is still the same woman who supports the troops, believes in God, and loves singing country music. That hasn’t changed.

As a fresh ‘out celebrity’, she is not sure what it will be like to openly date a woman. She has never asked a woman out on a date so she expects to feel like a teenager for the second time.

She picked the title Like Me because she grew up feeling there was no one else she could relate to nor was anyone like her. She is still figuring out who she is as a gay woman.  She is excited about finding a place where she belongs and being part of the gay community as she hasn’t experienced that feeling until now. All I can say is, congratulations Chely Wright. I wish you success with your new album and book. And you are hot!

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