Nine months after doctors found a malignant tumor in her breast, Melissa Etheridge says she is cancer free and thinking about having a baby with her partner, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels. “I stand before you a totally healthy person,” the 44 singer/songwriter said in an interview that aired last night (Aug. 4) on the syndicated television show “Extra.”
According to “Extra,” Etheridge revealed that she and Michaels, 30, were planning to have a baby through artificial insemination, and it quoted the raspy-voiced rocker as saying “It’s already in the works.”
But a spokesperson for Etheridge said the couple were merely “thinking about” having a baby and that “neither one is pregnant.”
Etheridge already has two daughters from a previous relationship — both fathered by rock legend David Crosby via artificial insemination and borne to her former partner of 12 years, filmmaker Julie Cypher. But Etheridge ruled out Crosby as a potential father for any future children, saying, “Been there, done that,” according to “Extra.”
Etheridge, who announced last October that she was cutting short her concert tour to undergo surgery for breast cancer, credited Michaels’ support as a key factor in her recovery. “At the end of the whole thing when it was over, I came home to a bouquet that said ‘in sickness and in health,’ and she means it,” she said. “And the love and support of someone like that is worth all the money in the world.”
The Kansas-born singer-songwriter has a greatest-hits collection, “The Road Less Traveled,” due for release in October via Island. Alongside familiar songs from her career, the set will include four new recordings, including covers of the Janis Joplin classic “Piece of My Heart,” which a bald-headed Etheridge performed with Joss Stone at the Grammy Awards ceremony in February, and Tom Petty’s “Refugee.”
“I decided to cover ‘Refugee’ because I wanted a song that spoke to my heart, my mind and my soul about where I was at,” Etheridge says on her official Web site. “And a song I could share with an audience that I knew they could relate to, a song that was recognizable but that I could make my own. And considering what I’d been through, and what I seem to be representing now in my life, I think ‘Refugee’ speaks to it perfectly.”
The single can be heard streaming through the site and be downloaded via Apple’s iTunes music store.
COPYRIGHT: (c) Reuters 2005. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news