Country singer Chely Wright on the down side of coming out: “My record sales went directly in half.”

Last May, there was a lot of buzz in the days leading up to when country singer Chely Wright announced to the world that she is a lesbian.

It had been leaked that someone was going to come out but we didn’t know who. Ricky Martin? Johnny Weir?

Nope. Not yet anyway.

When I found out it was Chely, I’ll admit to you now that I had never heard of her. I’m not a big country music fan and her biggest hits Single White Female and Shut Up and Drive had come several years earlier. But I had been sent her book and I sat down and read it cover to cover and watched her be interviewed on Oprah and The Today Show and was so deeply moved.

So much so that it was Chely who was named the winner of the 2010 Greggy for Coming Out Story of the Year.

A country star had never come out before but Chely was so articulate about her journey that you did believe she would be able to change hearts and minds and hopefully emerge as a bigger star than ever before.

But apparently that is not what has happened, according to a new interview Chely with the site Autostraddle.

First of all, the only country music artist who has publicly been supportive is Mary Chapin Carpenter. Others have been so privately but apparently do not want their fans to know they are LGBT friendly.

And there’s more: “There’s the gay community that now knows my name and it’s a long leap from the new demographic of people who will come to my Facebook page and hit the “Like” button to them buying my record and coming to live shows. It’s a big stretch from those new fans to make up for the fans I lost. It didn’t help my career. My record sales went directly in half. If it appears from the outside in that it’s helped my career, it could be because I haven’t talked about the negative. You won’t hear me bitching and moaning on my Facebook about the hate mail I’ve gotten. My life has been threatened. I get nasty letters every day, “I’m through with you Chely Wright, you’re going to hell.” There’s a big difference between press and advocacy and…. sometimes people forget that people who sing or make movies, this isn’t just a hobby for us. This is how I pay my bills. In coming out I had a feeling that it would diminish my wage earning, and that feeling was correct. And, I am fine with that.”

One gay-friendly celebrity who has become a close friend of Chely’s in the past year is Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth: “About a year and a half ago someone said to me – did you know that Kristin Chenoweth loves your “Never Love You Enough” album? I was just like, wow, that’s cool…. cause she’s a great singer who likes my record. Then, just a couple months before I came out I joined Twitter and had no idea how to use it and the person who was running my account was like, “well, you’ve got to say something to Kristin Chenoweth, she just tweeted you!” I didn’t even know how to log in. Anyway, she was tweeting that she was backstage at one of her shows and listening to my record and that was so cool!

She found out that I was living in New York and invited me to her Promises, Promises premiere. So we met and hung out and talked, and it was just a great time. And then a couple weeks later I came out. And I got the sweetest, most amazing email from her and she said “I just read your book” and was so sweet…. and I read her book as well A Little Bit Wicked, and we had so much in common. Both from the Midwest, both Christian, both worked at Opryland in our early years in Nashville…we just hit it off. She really is my friend. We’re not just Twitter buddies [laughs]. We really go eat dinner and hang out, etc.”

Here is a LINK to the rest of a terrific interview!