by Chely Wright
I have been aware during my career, when I meet other artists or am around other artists, that they’ve heard that rumor—among others, I’m sure. I know that when I leave the room, more than likely they discuss the topic. Daniel told me of the story that he’d heard and asked me, “Did that happen?” To which I replied, “No, that did not happen.” We left it at that.
“Hard to Be a Husband, Hard to Be a Wife”
In the fall of 2000, it was time to start deciding on songs for Never Love You Enough, my follow-up album to Single White Female, and that meant digging through thousands of songs penned by Nashville’s very capable tunesmiths and ones I’d come up with too. I really did like the song Brad Paisley, Tim Nichols, and I had written the previous year, so I recorded it for my new album.
I was working at The Tracking Room on Music Row, trying my best to make an album that would continue the career momentum I was enjoying at that time. I loved how the initial tracks were sounding, so in between sessions, I called Brad and asked him if he wanted to come over and hear what my producers and I had done with our song.
He showed up a little while later. The other musicians were at lunch, and it was just the two of us at the mixing console. We listened and both agreed that it was going to be a good recording of a good song. There was an awkward pause, and then he said, “Can I ask you something?” I said, “Sure.” He said, “Why didn’t you return my calls?” I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I skirted the issue. I reassured him that there was no real reason why I didn’t, that I must’ve just gotten busy and forgot. The excuse felt foreign as it came out of my mouth because it isn’t “me” to forget to call people back. I may get busy, but I’m aware at all times to whom I owe a response by phone and by e-mail. I don’t forget things like that, but I was hoping that he’d accept my excuse. He did and we easily became friends again.
Julia and I were struggling more than usual during that time. My star was still on the rise, and I was having the kind of success that I’d always dreamed of. She was also climbing the corporate ladder at her job. I was thrilled and supportive of her and resented the fact that she wasn’t for me.
I was also feeling smothered by increasing questions from my industry, the press, and the fans about my personal life. Again, that’s part of fame. Not only do people want to hear your music, they want to know your story. I got nervous and I started to realize that Julia and I weren’t doing that well and that we’d probably not survive the storm of speculation and inquiry. I began having thoughts about wanting to be normal and actually just making a choice to live a straight life. If I wasn’t going to be able to have Julia as my partner and if we weren’t going to make it …well, I decided that if I was going to be unhappy and unfulfilled anyway, why not just try to be with a man.
I felt resentful toward her, and I had grown tired of downplaying, in my own home, a large part of myself. I had dreamed of being a successful country artist since I was four years old, and it had come true. I was hurt by her demands, overt and subtle, that my career be left outside the door when I came home to her. I was trying hard to hold on to her, but I was also doing things that would push her away, things that I knew would break us. And that’s why I allowed my relationship with Brad to grow. Self-destructive behavior is common among closeted gays, and I’m sure there are professionals who can tell you the clinical reasons why we do this to ourselves, but I can’t. In my case, I did it because I felt discomfort about where I was in my life, and although I didn’t quite know what to do to remedy my situation, I made a decision to just do something—anything.
So I did. Brad and I began to be involved on a different level, romantically. We had a lot in common. We were both very dedicated to our careers, we were both in love with the tradition of country music, we shared a respect for the Grand Ole Opry, and we shared a sense of responsibility to be good role models. Neither of us had ever done a drug in our lives, and aside from his occasional cigar, neither of us had even tried smoking. I loved that Brad didn’t drink alcohol. I seldom drank, but if I’d have a glass of wine with a nice meal he didn’t make a judgment on it that I could tell. He had a strong faith, and although I didn’t agree with some of his religious beliefs and he didn’t agree with some of mine, we had a mutual respect. I thought he had a good way of managing his life and his career, and I felt that if I was going to compromise and be with a man, he’d be an amazing choice. We laughed a lot and he had quickly become one of my best friends.
Brad and I spent a lot of time together in Nashville, and we were touring together too. Our days on the road were easily integrated because we had similar habits and similar relationships with our band guys and crew members. We were each laid-back and didn’t require extra attention or babysitting by our tour managers. If I needed something and my tour manager wasn’t around, Brad’s tour manager would help me out and vice versa. We’d ride on each other’s buses, our drivers started to become pals, and our band guys were hanging out too. In the beginning, because I’d had a little more success than Brad, he was opening the shows. We started to come onstage during each other’s performances and sing together here and there. Then he started to gain more and more success, and it quickly became a co-headlining bill. Of course, there were also shows that started to sprinkle in there where he was the headliner and I was his opening act. We’d laugh about how suddenly things can change in show business. I was thrilled for him and he was equally happy for me. We didn’t compete; we considered ourselves a team. We wrote and produced songs together for my record and for his. I think we both had an understanding of each other’s sacrifice and talent, and it was a nice change for me, to have a partner who cheered me on. I had just been nominated by the Academy of Country Music for Female Vocalist of the Year, and he had a nomination for New Male Vocalist of the Year. There was a notable ease to the whole thing.
With Brad Paisley in 2000.
One night while we were writing a song, we started talking about people’s speculation about whether or not we were together as a couple. I did not want to publicly acknowledge our relationship, period. He did, and of course he didn’t understand why I had such an aversion to it. I didn’t want to because I’d made it my policy to never talk about my private life. If I started talking about my relationship with him, I feared that it would set a new precedent for me to openly discuss things like that. There was so much that I was hiding, I didn’t want anyone to feel that my private life was no longer “off limits.”
The cover of my fifth studio album, Never Love You Enough. The year 2001 was a critical time in my career. There was a lot of expectation that this album would go beyond the success of Single White Female.
I also knew that Julia didn’t know what was really going on between Brad and me. I think there was a part of me that wanted her to know. I was on self-destruct. He loved the attention we were getting as a suspected couple, and he told me that he was having trouble not shouting it from the rooftops that he was in love with me. Oh, no. Love. He confessed his love to me. There were so many ways in which I did love him, but I was not in love with him. The first song we wrote together, as I mentioned before, was “Not as in Love (as I’d Like to Be).”
Brad continued to tell me that our being officially a couple would be good for our careers, and I knew he was right. We both had hit records, and the fans liked the thought of us together, in love. I was tortured by my reality. We were sharing an intimate relationship, and that was difficult for me in so many ways. I was still in love with Julia. I prayed to fall out of love with her.
Being physical with Brad did not come quickly or easily for me. After all, I am gay. I often cried during those moments of physical intimacy, and I have no idea what he made of it when I cried. Another reason why I didn’t want to confirm my relationship with Brad was because I knew that it would eventually end, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered about the probability of my being outed. It was a real concern for me. The last thing I wanted to happen was for Brad to publi
cly declare his love for me, only to have the world find out someday that I am gay. I couldn’t stand the thought of the humiliation that could cause Brad.
My being with Brad did squelch some of the speculation that people had about me. I began to think that if Julia and I didn’t make it and Brad and I did …it just might be possible I’d escape this whole “gay thing” entirely. I began to hope it would play out that way and that any old rumors that I might be gay would be proven wrong. I just knew I’d be the one to take the hit, so to speak. I knew my heart would have to be willing to settle. I tried, I swear I did.
Brad didn’t try to keep our relationship a secret with his friends and family. Why would he? Everyone in his world that was close to him knew about it. That was okay with me, as I came to adore most of his friends and the people around him. He liked my friends too, I think. A few of my good male friends are gay, and Brad knew that if he was going to be in my life, he was going to be around people “like that.” We’d discussed the gay issue before and Brad’s position on it was religiously based. He was a strict Christian and adhered to the belief that the Bible clearly says homosexuality is a sin. He expressed to me on many occasions that being gay is more than likely a result of someone’s having been molested or that it is a choice. He is not alone in his thinking—especially in Nashville, in the South, and in the culture of country music. I made my case to him that I thought he was wrong and that most gays I know swear that it is not a choice. Nevertheless, once he did spend time with the gay men in my life, he liked them a lot. One time he said to me when discussing one of those friends, “Hey, I like the guy, even though he’s gay. I sat at the dinner table with him, anyway, didn’t I?”
Brad and I wrote a song that we thought was telling of who we were. The premise of it was that each of us, especially lately, had been asked so many questions about why each of us was unmarried or not engaged. I guess he started giving the response to people that I’d been giving my entire career: “I’m too busy, too focused on my career, and I’m married to my music.” So we wrote a song that we sang together called “Hard to Be a Husband, Hard to Be a Wife.”
We began to perform it at our shows and on the Grand Ole Opry when the occasion would arise. Then we were invited by the Grand Ole Opry and the CBS television network to perform our song on a primetime network television special. It was a TV special that marked the 75th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry, and we were the only non-members of the Opry who were asked to be a part of the show. It was the night of my thirtieth birthday and a highlight of my career—an amazing moment for both of us. The song was recorded live from the show and shortly after that, it began to be played on the radio. We’d be doing a show somewhere and people would yell out to us or hold up a sign that asked us to sing it, and we always did. We ended up getting a CMA (Country Music Association) nomination for Vocal Event of the Year for that song and record.
From the CBS “Grand Ole Opry 75th Anniversary Celebration.” Brad and I sang our song, “Hard to Be a Husband, Hard to Be a Wife.” Garth Brooks (on my right) was also on the show. 2000.
Brad is a thinker, a planner, and nothing that happens in his life just happens. He knows what he wants, forms a plan accordingly, and executes the plan. This is not a pejorative observation of him at all. In fact, I liked that about him. Anything he sets his mind to, he accomplishes. This was another quality that I admired and had put in the pros column of my figurative pros-and-cons list for Brad Paisley. I liked a person with vision, with the work ethic to follow through, and with the confidence to go after what he wanted. The problem was that he was now telling me that he wanted me…forever. He was starting to talk to me about forever and how someday he was going to want to marry me. Okay, now his characteristics of vision, focus, and resolve were landing solidly in the cons column of my list. I was scared.
I asked him if we could slow down. This came out of the blue to him because we really didn’t seem to have any problems. Well, except for the tiny little fact of my being a lesbian. I was hoping that I’d just fall out of favor with him. No such luck.
There was a night on the road, just outside of L.A., that was particularly dramatic. I was doing my best to pull away from him. I wasn’t very good at it, because it was all based on things that were false. For example, during the day of that show I talked to him in my dressing room about how I needed space. He didn’t understand any of my reasons, and rightfully so—they didn’t make sense. He left my dressing room, frustrated, I’m sure, but respecting my request to be left alone for the day. Then I ruined it. There was something that happened backstage that was funny or weird. I don’t remember the details. But I just had to tell him, and I knocked on his dressing room door, grinning from ear to ear, to tell him this hilarious story that I just knew he’d want to hear, because we loved that kind of thing. The problem with all of that was that I forgot that I was supposed to be pulling away from him. It slipped my mind that I was “going through something and needed space” from him. Just as I imagined, he laughed at the story I’d come to tell him. Then his argument was, “Come on, Chel—don’t we have fun? Don’t we just ‘fit’?” I didn’t have a good argument why we didn’t. I said I didn’t want to talk about it.
I asked my tour manager, Joe Morris, to get me a ride back to the hotel near LAX. We were scheduled to fly out early the next morning to Phoenix for another show with Brad, and I just wanted to get to my room and get some sleep. I was back in my room and Brad started to call my cell phone. I ignored it. He left voice mails asking me to let him come to my hotel room so we could talk. I guess he had asked Joe or my band guys what hotel we were staying in. I just wanted to hide from him for a while. He’d call, I’d check the voice mails as he left them, and then I just stayed in my room and cried. Then there was a knock on my door, and I didn’t want to answer it. If he knew for certain that I was actually in the room, I knew he’d never leave, so I was as quiet as I could be.
I wouldn’t call his behavior that night abnormal or irrational, given that he didn’t have all of the facts. Had he known my secret and I’d asked him to give me space, I’m confident he would have. But as far as he understood it, I was the woman he loved, and I was with him. There were no obvious reasons why it should be breaking down, so he was fighting to save something he cared about. I’m not sure if he knew without a doubt that I actually was in that hotel room, but he said through the door, “I’m not leaving this door until you let me in.” So he sat out there in the hallway by my door for over an hour. I quietly called my tour manager, Joe, and asked him if he’d come to the hallway and somehow convince Brad to just give up for the night and try to get some sleep too. Joe did that for me with no questions asked. None of that would have had to happen if I’d just been courageous enough to live my life honestly. Again, I was too afraid.
That kind of push and pull continued between Brad and me. I was driving him crazy with my erratic behavior, and our relationship finally started to come undone.
Shortly after the ordeal in L.A., my band and I had a midnight bus call from the Wal-Mart parking lot on Charlotte Pike just outside of Nashville. I’m not sure where we were headed. Brad and his guys had that weekend off.
He had been calling me all day long and I had not called him back. In a couple of his messages, he mentioned that he knew I was leaving that night for a show the next day and said he wanted to ride along with me so we could talk. I was ready to get away for a couple of days, alone. I arrived at bus call at about 11:45 p.m. I was in the back lounge putting my things away when Brad walked in. I was dumbfounded as to how he knew exactly when bus call was that night. He said that Joe Keiser, my production manager, had told him.
We started to talk in the back of the bus and I told him flat out that he was not going with me. He dug his heels in and said he was. I was angry with him for forcing the issue and he was angry with me for shutting him out. He started to get loud and that freaked me out. In all my years on the road, my band and crew had never seen or heard any ki
nd of drama from me, and I certainly didn’t want them to hear us back there arguing. I told Brad that I was through talking. He just wouldn’t stop. I suggested we go out to the parking lot to wrap up our conversation.
As we walked through the front lounge of the bus, all of my guys were up there and they just stared at the floor. They knew something was going on and that it wasn’t good. I have always been proud of not being late or causing my driver to have to sit around and wait on me. That night, my driver sat patiently and waited for me until 12:30. At that time, Brad and I were in his truck and I finally told him that I had to go. I got on the bus and walked back to the bunk area, not making eye contact with anyone, but I could feel them all looking at me. We were pulling out of the parking lot and I felt the bus stop for a second. I heard the door to the bus open and close. I looked up the hallway and there, on one of the front couches, sat Brad, with his arms crossed and his face red with frustration. I guessed he was going along for the weekend after all.
It was stressful and I tried everything I could, except the truth, to get him to see that this was not going to work out. The way he saw it was that I lacked trust in him or that I didn’t really believe in love. My parents had divorced a few years earlier, and I tried to use the demise of their relationship in my strategy. I played the pessimist and agreed with him that I just didn’t believe that love could last forever and that I was not a person he’d want to invest his heart in. This just sent him further into warrior mode. He was going to be the one to not let me down. He told me that he wanted to make me a promise of forever, that he wanted me to be his wife…whenever I was ready.
