{"id":2398609,"date":"2026-05-02T01:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2398609"},"modified":"2026-05-02T01:39:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T01:39:53","slug":"melissa-etheridge-says-a-journalist-made-her-look-straight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/melissa-etheridge-says-a-journalist-made-her-look-straight\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Etheridge says a journalist made her look straight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In May 1992, Melissa Etheridge graced the cover of Music Express \u2014 a now-defunct, free Canadian magazine that had previously featured the likes of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Tom Petty and Boy George. Next to a sexy photo of Etheridge wearing a low-cut white top, her guitar slung over her shoulder, the headline under her name read, &#8220;The Naked Truth.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>However, as Etheridge recalled this week in an interview with <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/1osIa0JYvDmWGoFzkfuQ0R?si=ic6_BIcQQ1C3UZ8ahOdDcg&amp;nd=1&amp;dlsi=05b77c3791fa4a37\" target=\"_blank\">Joel Madden on his podcast, Artist Friendly,<\/a> the truth is that the man who wrote that article told many lies about who she was, much to the singer&#8217;s shock. <\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p>&#8220;I was on the cover of Music Express, and he changed every pronoun that I used,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He changed it to my &#8216;boyfriend,&#8217; and it horrified me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube\"> <span style=\"display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;\" class=\"rm-shortcode\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"8d039a5f81393206a09793da7eff2b71\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Melissa Etheridge on Cancer, Coming Out &amp; Why She&#039;s Never Felt Better\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0TGU0X9ieBs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/span> <small class=\"image-media media-caption\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Caption...\">&#8211; YouTube<\/small> <small class=\"image-media media-photo-credit\" placeholder=\"Add Photo Credit...\"> <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtu.be\/0TGU0X9ieBs?si=z87gVP4Y4Xic5ANv&amp;t=1893\" target=\"_blank\">youtu.be<\/a> <\/small> <\/p>\n<p>It was 1992, Etheridge was 31 and she had released three albums without publicly declaring her orientation. Yet her sapphic fans seemed to sense what she was hiding. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My first, you know, two rows would be women losing their minds, right? And I&#8217;m like, &#8216;I don&#8217;t know. You know. What&#8217;s this?'&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p> Following the release of her third album, Never Enough, the mainstreaming of grunge provided an opportunity to consider at least coming out with her wardrobe: &#8220;Hey, I can wear flannel,&#8221; she told Madden. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been wearing flannel for a long time, you know, and I hear &#8216;alternative,&#8217; and I&#8217;m like, &#8216;This is the time,&#8221; said Etheridge.<\/p>\n<p>The gender-swapping of her reference of her &#8220;girlfriend&#8221; to &#8220;boyfriend,&#8221; and changing all the pronouns, accelerated her desire to publicly declare she was a lesbian. &#8220;The gay community was really strong, but it was underground,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I\u2019m like, &#8216;Oh my god, they\u2019re going to think that I did this.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So instead of her original plan \u2014 to come out in September 1993 on The Arsenio Hall Show to promote the release of her fourth album, Yes I Am \u2014 Etheridge made an impulsive announcement. Forty seconds into her speech at the Jan. 20th, 1993 Triangle Ball, a celebration of President Clinton\u2019s inauguration, the rocker wowed the crowd of &#8220;powerful gay leaders,&#8221; including the woman she called her &#8220;sister,&#8221; <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.out.com\/popnography\/2016\/6\/02\/exclusive-kd-lang-girl-bands-carol-and-gay-marriage\" target=\"_blank\">k.d lang. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very proud to say right here, I\u2019m very proud to have been a lesbian all my life,\u201d Etheridge told the crowd, to huge cheers. Lang leaped into the air and hugged Etheridge tightly. That inspiring moment was <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=24608074252173178\" target=\"_blank\">captured on video.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Looking back at that speech more than three decades later, Etheridge told Madden: \u201cI\u2019m grateful that I had the opportunity to be truthful to myself and speak about it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It comes back to me constantly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, this is actually the second time in almost a year that Etheridge, 64, has spoken about the article that propelled her to come out of the closet. She discussed it an interview <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=1272351187782848\" target=\"_blank\">posted to her official Facebook page<\/a> in June 2025. &#8220;I was misquoted so horribly in a music magazine once,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They had changed everything to me saying &#8216;My Boyfriend&#8217;, and I was like &#8216;I can&#8217;t do this&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 1995, Etheridge released her biggest hit song, I&#8217;m the Only One. It peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year, with the iconic lyrics that made clear, once and for all, this is a woman who loves women, even when they don&#8217;t love her back. <\/p>\n<p>Tonight you told me<br \/>That you ache for somethin&#8217; new<br \/>&#8216;Cause some other woman is lookin&#8217; like something<br \/>That might be good for you<br \/>Go on and hold her &#8217;til the screaming is gone<br \/>Go on believe her when she tells you<br \/>Nothing&#8217;s wrong<br \/>But I&#8217;m the only one<br \/>Who&#8217;ll walk across the fire for you<br \/>And I&#8217;m the only one<br \/>Who&#8217;ll drown in my desire for you<br \/>It&#8217;s only fear that makes you run<br \/>The demons that you&#8217;re hiding from<br \/>When all your promises are gone<br \/>I&#8217;m the only one<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.out.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In May 1992, Melissa Etheridge graced the cover of Music Express \u2014 a now-defunct, free Canadian magazine that had previously featured the likes of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Tom Petty and Boy George. Next to a sexy photo of Etheridge wearing a low-cut white top, her guitar slung over her shoulder, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2398610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[386674,384244,426271,23272,358745,22008,393512,21800,468211,21939,431133],"class_list":["post-2398609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-boyfriend","tag-gay","tag-girlfriend","tag-journalism","tag-lesbian","tag-magazine","tag-melissa-etheridge","tag-music","tag-pronouns","tag-rock","tag-straight"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Melissa-Etheridge-says-a-journalist-made-her-look-straight.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2398609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2398611,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398609\/revisions\/2398611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2398610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2398609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2398609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2398609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}