WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:03.200 Before we begin, a quick note about this episode. 00:00:03.759 --> 00:00:08.160 Shelley Wright's story includes a period when she considered taking her own life. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.160 And we're going to talk about that honestly. 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:16.640 If that subject is difficult for you right now, this may not be the right episode to listen to. 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:25.359 And if you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or simply need someone to talk to in the United States you can call or text. 00:00:30.239 --> 00:00:32.240 It's available 24 hours a day. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:35.200 Please take care of yourself. 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:45.280 On January 26, 2006, Shelley Wright was alone in her house outside Nashville. 00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:53.679 She was 35 years old and had already done most of the things she used to dream about when she was a little girl in Kansas. 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:56.560 She had moved to Nashville. 00:00:57.439 --> 00:00:59.520 She had signed a record deal. 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:04.079 The Academy of Country Music had named her top female vocalist. 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:07.280 She had performed at the Grand Old Aubrey. 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:11.840 Her song, Single White Female, had gone all the way to number one. 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:17.439 People magazine had even named her one of its 50 most beautiful people. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:21.599 That morning, none of it seemed to matter very much. 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:27.040 Shelly had a 9mm handgun her parents had given her for protection. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.159 She put the gun in her mouth. 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:34.239 For a moment, she was ready to pull the trigger. 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:37.519 Thankfully, she didn't. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.640 Eventually, she put the gun down, went upstairs, and fell asleep. 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:51.359 When she woke up a few hours later, she was afraid to go downstairs because the gun was still there, so she stayed upstairs. 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.560 She got down on her knees. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.719 Shelly had spent a lot of time on her knees over the years. 00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:00.959 She knew how to pray. 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:04.239 She'd been doing it since she was a little girl. 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:07.200 This prayer was different. 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:10.879 There wasn't really anything left to bargain with. 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:13.280 She had tried that already. 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:15.520 For most of her life, actually. 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:19.199 The first deal had been made when she was about nine. 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:24.639 Shelley would give up love, and in exchange, God would give her music. 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:27.039 She got the music. 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:53.759 Shelly Wright grew up in Wellsville, Kansas, a small town surrounded by farmland. 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:56.159 Country music was already there. 00:02:56.479 --> 00:03:02.000 Her father played guitar, her mother kept handwritten lyrics to songs she loved. 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:04.400 Family gatherings included music. 00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:10.080 And Shelley remembers deciding when she was very young that she wanted to be a country singer. 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:15.120 Not just that she liked singing, she was going to Nashville. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.800 She was going to make records. 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:22.400 She was going to stand on the Grand Ole Opry stage. 00:03:23.039 --> 00:03:24.960 She was only four years old. 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:29.520 A few years later, Shelly figured out something else about herself. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:31.599 She liked girls. 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:35.360 One of her earliest crushes was on a female teacher. 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.400 There wasn't much she could do with that information. 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:40.240 She was a child. 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:51.120 But Shelly was also a church kid, and she knew enough about what she'd heard there to understand that girls weren't supposed to feel that way about other girls. 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:53.360 She began praying about it. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:57.919 Dear God, please don't let me be gay. 00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:01.759 She said that prayer over and over and over. 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:09.759 Sometimes she would go outside into the fields around her home, far enough away that nobody could hear her. 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:15.680 Then she could say it out loud, please don't let me be gay. 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.680 Shelley tried offering God some things in return. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:26.000 She would be good, she wouldn't lie, she wouldn't steal. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:31.360 She believed in him, and she wanted to do the right things. 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:34.560 Just take this one thing away. 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:37.519 It didn't go away. 00:04:37.839 --> 00:04:39.920 And country music didn't either. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:44.480 As Shelley got older, the two things began running beside each other. 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.240 She studied country records almost obsessively. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:52.480 She read liner notes and learned the names of songwriters and producers. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:57.120 She knew who played on the records and who wrote which songs. 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:02.399 She looked for somebody like herself, but she couldn't find one. 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.199 There were plenty of women in country music. 00:05:05.360 --> 00:05:10.079 Patsy Klein, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton. 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:15.120 Women singing about husbands and boyfriends and heartbreak. 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:21.040 Nobody Shelly could find was saying she was gay. 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:27.360 So she reached a conclusion that probably seemed perfectly reasonable to a teenager in Kansas. 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:32.160 She could be gay or she could be a country singer. 00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:34.079 She couldn't be both. 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:36.959 At some point, the prayers changed. 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:41.199 Shelley began to believe that maybe God wasn't going to change her. 00:05:41.439 --> 00:05:45.839 Eventually, she even began to believe God wasn't condemning her. 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:49.680 That helped, but it didn't solve Nashville. 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.240 Years later, she would describe the difference pretty clearly. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:57.680 Maybe she wasn't in spiritual jeopardy anymore. 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.199 She was still in country music jeopardy. 00:06:01.519 --> 00:06:03.360 So Shelley made a deal. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:07.519 If she couldn't have love, she would take the music. 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:10.879 She would live without the other thing. 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:13.680 She was young enough to believe that might work. 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:18.160 At 18, Shelley left Kansas and headed toward Nashville. 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:22.879 She worked at Opera Land USA for a while, singing in one of the shows there. 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:26.639 She could see the life she wanted getting closer. 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:31.279 Eventually came a publishing deal, then a record deal. 00:06:31.519 --> 00:06:34.800 In 1994, her first album was released. 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:41.040 The next year, the Academy of Country Music named her top new female vocalist. 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:43.920 The Little Girl from Wellsville had made it. 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:46.879 Or at least she was getting there. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:53.360 Then in 1999 came the song that changed her career, Single White Female. 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:57.040 It went to number one on the country chart. 00:06:57.279 --> 00:07:06.240 There is an obvious irony in Shelley Wright, a closeted lesbian becoming famous, singing a song about a single woman looking for a man. 00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:10.079 But Shelley doesn't talk about the music as if it were fake. 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:13.519 That's one of the things I find interesting about her story. 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:18.560 When she sang about wanting someone, she understood wanting someone. 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:21.839 When she sang about heartbreak, she knew that too. 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:27.360 She could put the woman she loved into a song without telling anybody who she was singing about. 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:29.120 The feelings were real. 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.319 It was everything around them that had to be adjusted. 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:35.199 Because by then, there was a woman. 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:38.079 Shelley calls her Julia in her memoir. 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:41.680 They would be together on and off for about 12 years. 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:46.319 Those were also the years Shelly's career was becoming everything she hoped it might be. 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:47.600 They had dogs. 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:49.199 They worked in the yard. 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:53.120 They did the ordinary things couples do when nobody is watching. 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:56.560 The problem was that somebody might always be watching. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:03.519 Shelley tells one story about the L word, the television series about lesbians living in Los Angeles. 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:05.920 She and Julia wanted to watch it. 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:09.199 Buying the DVD shouldn't have required much planning. 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:10.480 For them it did. 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:15.040 They waited until around Thanksgiving and went to a store in Nashville. 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.879 When it was time to pay, Shelley went back to the car. 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:20.639 Julia bought it. 00:08:20.879 --> 00:08:23.360 Then they went home and watched television. 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:26.000 That's how small the closet can get. 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:33.759 Not an award show, not a reporter sticking a microphone in your face, a checkout line. 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:39.120 Shelly'd become recognizable enough that even buying a television show felt dangerous. 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:41.200 There were men in her life too. 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:46.960 Some were friends, some became dates, and eventually there was Brad Paisley. 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:50.639 Brad was still building his own country career then. 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:52.720 Shelly liked him very much. 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:56.240 She thought he was funny and extremely smart. 00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:59.039 She loved being around him. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:03.120 What she didn't feel was sexual attraction. 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:05.519 Brad didn't know that. 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:08.080 He also didn't know about Julia. 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:17.120 Shelley later admitted that she hurt him and has expressed regret for bringing him into a relationship without allowing him to know what was really happening. 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:20.480 At the time, she found a way to make sense of it. 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:25.679 She had already accepted that she wasn't gonna get the kind of romantic life she wanted. 00:09:25.919 --> 00:09:30.240 Maybe she could build something different with the man she genuinely cared about. 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:35.600 And if she was gonna be with a man, Brad seemed like a pretty good one. 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:37.440 It didn't work. 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:39.679 The relationship ended. 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:42.000 Shelley continued singing. 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:47.279 Julia remained part of her life, and the secret remained too. 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:51.600 By then, Shelly had discovered something else about success. 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:54.480 It didn't make the fear smaller. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:57.279 In some ways, it made it worse. 00:09:57.600 --> 00:09:59.360 There was more to lose now. 00:09:59.600 --> 00:10:02.240 A record deal can disappear. 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:04.720 Radio can stop playing you. 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:07.279 The Opry can stop calling. 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:12.639 People who once wanted you at their table can suddenly stop returning calls. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:19.279 Every good thing that happened to Shelly added another thing that might disappear if somebody found out. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.639 And people were beginning to wonder. 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:30.159 In 2005, Shelly spent an evening with her friend John Rich, who was half of the country duo Big and Rich. 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:35.600 On the ride home, according to Shelly's account, John asked her about something he'd heard. 00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:37.360 People were talking. 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:38.879 Was she gay? 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:41.120 Shelley said no. 00:10:41.919 --> 00:10:48.960 John Rich later said the conversation had been interpreted differently than he intended and wished her well after she came out. 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:53.759 But what matters here is what happened inside Shelly when he asked. 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:56.000 Somebody had noticed. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:05.759 After all those years of careful answers and checkout lines and watching who saw her with Julia, people in Nashville were talking anyway. 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:07.600 Shelley panicked. 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:14.080 And she did something that made sense according to the deals she'd been living under since she was a child. 00:11:14.399 --> 00:11:16.399 She protected the music. 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:18.960 She ended things with Julia. 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:21.440 They sold the house they shared. 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:23.279 Shelly moved out. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:28.399 For years she had somehow managed to have both parts of her life. 00:11:28.639 --> 00:11:32.879 Not openly, not easily, but Julie was there. 00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:35.360 And now she wasn't. 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:40.159 Shelly had finally done what she'd promised all those years earlier. 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:46.080 She gave up love and discovered that music wasn't enough. 00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:49.679 The months afterward became very dark. 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:56.159 Shelly had friends, she had family, she had a beautiful home, she had money, she had a career. 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:59.440 She'd later described the problem much more simply. 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:02.000 No one really knew her. 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:07.679 On January 26th, 2006, she picked up the gun. 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:10.639 She didn't pull the trigger. 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:16.639 The next morning, upstairs and afraid to go back down, Shelley got on her knees. 00:12:17.039 --> 00:12:21.039 This time, she wasn't asking God to make her straight. 00:12:21.279 --> 00:12:22.960 She wasn't offering to be good. 00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:25.679 She wasn't asking for another hit record. 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:28.559 She had reached the end of that conversation. 00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:30.720 She had two possibilities. 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:34.720 She could die in that house or she could come out. 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:38.480 Shelley decided she was going to live. 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:42.559 That didn't mean she'd called a reporter that afternoon. 00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:45.840 It would actually be years before the public knew. 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:49.200 For the first time, though, the ending had changed. 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:51.679 Shelley began writing songs. 00:12:51.919 --> 00:12:55.679 A lot of them were about the relationship she had just lost. 00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:59.600 Eventually, she began working with Rodney Crowell on a new album. 00:12:59.919 --> 00:13:05.360 Rodney was one of Nashville's most respected songwriters and producers, and Shelley trusted him. 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.159 But she didn't tell him that she was gay. 00:13:08.480 --> 00:13:11.919 She played in the songs, all except one. 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:15.840 That one was called Like Me. 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:17.519 It was too obvious. 00:13:17.679 --> 00:13:24.320 Shelley knew Rodney well enough to believe that if he heard it, he would understand she was singing about a woman. 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:26.559 So she kept it from him. 00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:29.200 Then one day, Rodney came to her house. 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:31.679 He had something he wanted to tell her. 00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:34.720 People had been asking him about Shelly. 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:36.320 Was she gay? 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:39.200 Rodney had always said he didn't know. 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:47.039 Then, during a trip to Los Angeles, he found himself participating in a long conversation about her sexuality, and he felt bad about it. 00:13:47.279 --> 00:13:50.720 So he came to Shelly's house to apologize, and she thanked him. 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:53.759 She didn't come out to him, not that day. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.080 After he left, she thought about it. 00:13:56.320 --> 00:13:57.519 She prayed. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:01.039 The next morning she called Rodney and asked him to come back. 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:05.600 They sat on the porch and Shelley told him she was gay. 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:08.080 And she was gonna come out publicly. 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:11.519 Then she told him about the song she had kept from him. 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:12.799 Like me. 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:16.399 She couldn't quite bring herself to play it for him sitting there. 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:19.679 She told him she'd email it, and Rodney left. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:25.679 Shelley went to her computer, she sent him the song, and then she opened a new document. 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:28.639 On the title page, she typed two words. 00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:30.000 Like me. 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:33.679 That became the title of the book she was about to write. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:39.600 For the next few years, Shelley worked on telling the stories she had spent most of her life trying not to tell. 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:46.799 She moved to New York, she wrote the memoir, she finished the album, and she started telling people privately. 00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:49.440 There was an odd new secret now. 00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:56.480 For 35 years, Shelley had been hiding that she was gay, and now she had to hide that she was planning to tell everybody. 00:14:56.720 --> 00:15:02.399 By the spring of 2010, there were publicists and managers and television producers involved. 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:08.960 Shelley later remembered that dozens of people eventually knew what was coming, and somehow they kept it quiet. 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:12.480 On May 3, 2010, the story finally broke. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:14.559 Shelly Wright was gay. 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:16.159 Then came people. 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:28.320 The Today Show, Oprah, ABC, NPR, the memoir, the album, the things she had believed would end her life with suddenly something she was saying into television cameras. 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:31.200 Shelly explained it in a way I like. 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:34.799 She wasn't coming out because she wasn't afraid. 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:38.000 She was coming out because she wasn't ashamed. 00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:39.919 Those are two different things. 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:42.480 Nashville's reaction was complicated. 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:44.960 There were people who supported her privately. 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:49.919 Mary Chapin Carpenter publicly praised her, and others said nothing. 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.120 Some people Shelley had known for years stopped calling. 00:15:53.360 --> 00:15:58.559 She later described the response from country music as a kind of quiet rejection. 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:04.080 Not everyone needed to condemn her, as sometimes silence does a pretty good job. 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:08.480 Her mother continued believing homosexuality was sinful and a choice. 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:13.759 Shelley talked openly about that too, while also making it clear that she loved her mother. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:19.679 There wasn't one magical week when everybody in Shelley Wright's life suddenly understood everything. 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:21.600 Her career changed. 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:27.440 Country radio didn't suddenly embrace an openly gay Shelly Wright because she'd told the truth. 00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:31.360 Some of the things she had been afraid of actually happened. 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:34.320 Just not the things she had feared most. 00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:36.480 Her life didn't end. 00:16:36.720 --> 00:16:37.919 It got bigger. 00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:45.039 In 2011, Shelly married Lauren Blitzer, and two years later, they become mothers to twin boys. 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:56.000 Shelley became involved in LGBTQ advocacy and created the Like Me organization to help young people who were growing up with some of the same isolation she had known. 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:00.879 She kept making music, and her life eventually moved in other directions too. 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.600 But I keep going back to Kansas. 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:12.480 Before Nashville, before single white female, before Julia or Brad Paisley or John Rich, before the gun. 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:22.480 There's a little girl standing out in a field because she wants to get far enough away from the house that nobody will hear what she's saying. 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:26.160 She's trying to negotiate with God. 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:28.640 She already knows what she wants. 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:30.400 She wants country music. 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:34.400 She doesn't understand yet what she'll want when she's 30 or 40. 00:17:34.640 --> 00:17:37.599 She doesn't know what it's like to come home to somebody. 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:40.960 She doesn't know what it feels like when that person is gone. 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:42.319 She's nine. 00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:46.400 So she makes the best deal a nine-year-old can make. 00:17:47.359 --> 00:17:49.599 Take this away from me. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:51.200 I'll be good. 00:17:52.319 --> 00:17:56.000 And if I can't have love, just let me have music. 00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:04.720 Years later, Shelly talked about that deal and said something I think she finally understood better than that little girl in the field possibly could. 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:09.119 A nine-year-old probably shouldn't be held to a bargain like that. 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:11.680 Shelley got the music. 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.599 She just eventually decided she wanted the rest of her life too. 00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:21.440 I'm standing. 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:24.160 And now the secret is out.