Lesbian rock icon Melissa Etheridge says record label boss told her to hide ‘gay thing’

Melissa Etheridge has opened up about the homophobia she faced in her early career.

Etheridge famously came out as gay in 1993 at an LGBTQ+ event to mark Bill Clinton’s inauguration, flanked by K.D Lang.

Five years earlier, as she prepared to release her debut album, a record label exec had asked what she was “gonna do about the gay thing”, she told Spin.

“I was like: ‘What do you mean? I’m not gonna pretend I’m something else. I’m not going to go find a guy to take pictures with, and pretend he’s my boyfriend. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna be me,” Etheridge recalled.

The unnamed boss reportedly answered: “As long as you don’t flag wave.”

While she wasn’t out at the time, Etheridge was a regular performer at lesbian bars.

Her debut, Melissa Etheridge, was released in 1988. Its follow-up, Yes I Am, came in September 1993, just a few months after her coming out.

It spent 138 weeks on the Billboard 200 and solidified Etheridge as a household name.

Melissa Etheridge’s 1993 single “Come to My Window,” from the Yes I Am album, contains the lyrics: “I don’t care what they think. I don’t care what they say. What do they know about this love, anyway?”

The singer has long been a hero for the lesbian community, and has won two Grammy awards for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, in 1993 and 1995 – the latter for a performance of “Come to My Window”.

She has also received five GLAAD awards, with another four nominations, and “I Need to Wake Up” won the 2006 Oscar for Best Original Song. She also a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hopefully, that music executive has been paying attention.