There has been all kinds of speculation in recent weeks over who was the famous person coming out this week.

It was interesting to see who people were coming up with. I’ve known for the past week that it was country singer Chely Wright because an advance copy of her book Like Me: Confessions of a Country Singer was sent to me last week and I’ve been poring through it.

Chely is best known for her hits Single White Female and Shut Up and Drive and has a new album, Lifted Off the Ground. She has won multiple awards, including several from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.

The overwhelming feeling I’ve had reading the book is compassion for all that she has gone through and how much being closeted has cost her personally and how being found out would have derailed her career in country music.

The stakes were high for Chely and she suffered greatly, as anyone in the closet does. She was put in the impossible position of having to choose between things and people she loves.

I’ll share more from the book later today and this week and hope to arrange an interview with Chely.

“I hid everything for my music,” she told People magazine, which hits newsstands Friday.

“There had never, ever been a country music artist who had acknowledged his or her homosexuality,” she added. “I wasn’t going to be the first” — but she changed her mind.

“Nothing in my life has been more magical than the moment I decided to come out.”

Comments

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One Remark

1. May 4th, 2010 at 6:47 am
   Monkeyphat says:

   Chely’s best video. You go girl!
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmA-ENKyRg&feature=PlayList&p=17C64E7B729C9CF7&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=2

   Maybe Kenny will be next.