Country music singer and songwriter Chely Wright has been a public figure for years—she was recognized by the Academy of Country Music as the Top New Female Vocalist in 1995 and has been featured in People’s 50 Most Beautiful list. She has sold one million records and hit #1 on the Billboard charts with “Single White Female.” She has toured the United States and the world, performing for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan seven times, and has collaborated with top country performers such as Vince Gill and Brad Paisley.
She has accomplished all of this at the expense of a lifelong lie but now, in her revealing memoir, LIKE ME: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer, Chely Wright finally bares her truth:
“No one like me in country music has ever admitted his or her homosexuality. There are gays in Nashville, but as far as anyone is led to believe, they are not those of us on magazine covers. How could I be gay? Well, I am.”
With that Chely Wright sets the fearlessly candid tone that permeates the telling of her story and becomes the first openly gay country music artist.
LIKE ME follows Chely Wright from her childhood in Kansas, where she prayed to God three times a day to keep her from “sinning,” to being cast in Country Music USA’s Opryland (her first break), to Nashville and her first record, and finally the successes that followed. Throughout Chely Wright shares the scarifies of self, lies of omission, shame, and struggles with personal integrity that she chose to endure in order to live her dream and become a country music star. Now, with the publication of her no-holds-barred memoir, LIKE ME, and the release of a new album, Lifted Off the Ground, Chely Wright is finally living her truth.
“I am standing up for myself, because if I don’t, I will never be whole. That my story might help others find comfort, safety, and understanding is a beautiful by-product of truth.”
Like Me is fearless, inspiring, true.