Country singer Chely Wright, who publicly announced that she is lesbian in a May 2010 interview in People, reveals in a new blog profile that since coming out, her career and life have been threatened.
In a chat with the lesbian-focused pop culture blog Auto Straddle, the country star known for the hits “Single White Female” and “Shut Up and Drive” says that after publicly revealing her sexuality, her album sales were cut “directly in half.” She also dispels the notion that coming out has helped her career via ample publicity, and reveals that the declaration has led to death threats.
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“It didn’t help my career,” she proclaims in the blog chat. “…If it appears from the outside that it’s helped my career, it could be because I haven’t talked about the negative. You won’t hear me bitching and moaning on my Facebook about the hate mail I’ve gotten. My life has been threatened. I get nasty letters every day, ‘I’m through with you Chely Wright, you’re going to hell.’ …In coming out I had a feeling that it would diminish my wage earning, and that feeling was correct. And, I am fine with that.”