Chely Wright -- She's Coming Out (country singer)

[Are_grits_groceries]

TMZ has learned the big "coming out" announcement planned for this week will be ... country star Chely Wright.

There's been a big buzz over the last week as to which celeb was announcing he/she was gay ... we knew it was going to be unveiled in PEOPLE mag next week. But now TMZ knows for sure.

Wright has a book coming out this week as well -- it's called, "Like Me." And she has a CD coming out too -- called "Lifted Off the Ground."
The 39-year-old singer scored a #1 country song back in 1999 with "Single White Female," when she was named Academy of Country Music new artist of the year.

Wright is the first major country artist ever to come out. She has been romantically linked to a number of celebs, including Brad Paisley.

This is a big deal in the country world. Chely is rolling the dice on her career ... it's unclear how traditionally-conservative country fans will react.

Interesting ... she lists Howard Bragman as her publicist, who was the mastermind behind the Chaz Bono story.
Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2010/05/02/chely-wright-gay-lesbian-country-singer-coming-out-people-magazine-today-show/#ixzz0ms2H7wDl

How long until the WBC is in Nashville?
I want to see how the country artists and their fanbases react to this. People like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill better walk the walk.
(It's pronounced "shelly")

[Botany]

1. I find this news highly interesting

Chely Wright :loveya:

[madokie]

2. What a knock out

never heard of her before though.

[Lochloosa]

3. If you like country music at all you should check her out.

[madokie]

13. What I said,

What a knock out.
And she can sing too, wow. Its hard for me to wrap my brain around not having heard of her before. I so love beautiful things and pretty voices of which she is/has.

[tanyev]

4. Wow! The woman who wrote, The Bumper of my SUV?

Written entirely by Wright, the song is a ballad, accompanied almost exclusively by piano. Its lyrics are a first-person account of a woman who is driving her SUV. She is given the finger by another driver, due to the fact that she (the singer) has "a bright red sticker for the U.S. Marines / on the bumper of SUV". The singer then defends her sticker, stating that her family served in the Marines. The song was inspired by an actual incident, according to Wright. Wright has stated that she did not intend for the song to be pro-war. In addition, she has stated that she recorded the song begrudgingly, and did not intend for it to be a single.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bumper_of_My_SUV


IF this event did indeed happen, I suspect it's because there was also a W04 sticker on that SUV.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

5. Other than the #1 song in 1999...

...Chely's been a second-stringer as far as female country artists are concerned.

Faith Hill and Martina McBride are basically the current divas, while Wright and artists like Sara Evans were the artists who fell in behind them. Leann Rimes had been an up and down diva, and that's primarily due to the fact that she became tabloid fodder.

Wright's last album of new material, The Metropolitan Hotel (2005) didn't exactly set the charts on fire.

Five years is a LONG time off for a star of her stature, especially in an "American Idol"-ized world that's become increasingly fond of the "Flavor of the Month."

So this move will obviously alienate her from the hardcore "God & Guns" base of country fans, but I'm not convinced that they were her biggest audience to begin with. I feel that she was part of that Faith Hill / Martina McBride orbit, which isn't exactly "Grand Ole Opry" (although McBride did release a pretty successful CD, "Timeless," which covered old-school "traditional" country music).

I think the five year vacation has taken her off of most people's radar. She's currently a "What ever happened to..." celebrity, and when people hear the announcement, my guess is that they will respond with "Oh, really" and go back to whatever they were doing before the announcement was made.

Just my guess. I don't think this is one tenth the "bombshell" TMZ would like it to be.

[Are_grits_groceries]

6. I don't care what her track record is in Nashville.

Coming out as a country singer is a very risky move. It isn't a move you make to positively get on the radar again as a country singer.

Hopefully, they will not react and it will be a non-story.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

12. I agree on both counts

It's a risky move, and it's going to be a non-story.

And the reason it's a non-story is that she's a second-string celebrity who's basically taken a five year vacation.

[Mike Daniels]

8. I agree. She doesn't appear to have been a real presence since 1999

This isn't a bombshell by any means.

[katandmoon]

7. Never heard of her.

[rurallib]

10. more than likely after this you will never hear of her again either

[TreasonousBastard]

9. If her star is fading, this could be a career move...

what's she got to lose?

[Mike Daniels]

11. It definitely creates more interest than if she just released another album w/out comment

She apparently isn't a major star anymore (if she ever was) so this "reveal" ups her newsworthiness more than anything she's put out on album in the last decade.