Chely Wright Reflects on Leaving Country Music After Coming Out: “I Had to Survive”

Chely Wright was a rising star on the country music charts in the late 1990s, known for hits like Single White Female and her appearances on the Grand Ole Opry stage. But behind the scenes, she was carrying a secret she feared could derail everything she’d worked for: she was a gay woman in an industry not yet ready for open queerness.

In a candid new interview with Variety, Wright, now 54, opened up about the emotional toll of leading a closeted life at the peak of her fame, and how that fear ultimately reshaped her career—and her sense of self.

“I began seeing career longevity through a different lens sooner than anyone else similarly situated because I was a closeted gay person,” Wright explained. “I knew that at any moment my career could be gone like that if I were found out.”

That constant pressure, she said, forced her into survival mode. “You spend a lot of your energy when you’re in the closet staying in the closet. I did think about what would I do if this career were taken from me.”

Wright began preparing for the worst, even while still basking in industry success. In the late ’90s, she started buying and managing rental homes in Nashville as a side hustle. “I can’t tell you how many times I was painting a rental house, ran home, got a shower, and went out and did the Grand Ole Opry,” she recalled. “I loved it, but I also think I was doing it out of survival.”

Her fears weren’t unfounded. In 2010, when Wright became the first major country star to come out publicly as gay, the industry’s response was tepid at best. Radio play diminished. Performance invitations dried up. The same crowds that had once cheered her every lyric now turned their backs. And yet, Wright stood firm in her decision—knowing, even in the face of uncertainty, that she had reclaimed something more important than a chart position: her identity.

“It was my choice if I want to shapeshift and change my career path or write a new chapter,” she said. “I didn’t want to feel like I was having anything taken from me.”

Today, Wright is far from the recording studio. She’s a senior executive at ISS, a global workplace experience and facilities management company. It’s a position few would have predicted for the once-rising country artist, but for Wright, the transition felt natural.

“I would never have imagined this direction, mostly because I never saw anyone do it,” she admitted. “But I feel really lucky and grateful and honored to have done what I did when I did it.”

Wright’s personal life also flourished after leaving the industry. She married LGBTQ+ rights advocate Lauren Blitzer in 2011, and the couple welcomed twins George and Everett in 2013. Her journey—marked by courage, sacrifice, and quiet reinvention—has inspired a new generation of artists struggling with the same fear she once knew so intimately.

“I hear so frequently from other people in the industry and new or emerging artists that my story and my coming out gave them a little bit of comfort and insight and maybe community,” Wright shared. “Of all the things I’ve done in my life, coming out, not just when I did but how I did, I think it’s the thing of which I’m most proud.”

Though she’s no longer touring or recording, Wright hasn’t entirely ruled out a return to music. “I’d be surprised if I never did music again,” she said, hinting that the next chapter may yet hold a melody.

In the meantime, Chely Wright remains a quiet trailblazer—living proof that stepping into the unknown with truth can lead to a life more authentic, more grounded, and, ultimately, more free.