Why did the rural star Chely Wright left music for a corporate career

Fifteen years ago, Chely wright She became a first mainstream country singer to come out as gay – and she has never stopped fighting to make other people feel seen. Now, with a brand new corporate career, she gives her music experience for use in the boardroom so that no one else has to feel like they don’t fit in at work.

“I’m zero earth from what he looks and feels like not to feel that you belong to work,” wright, 54, remembered in a unique interview with Weekly US. “I know how that feels, and it’s not a great feeling. And it’s irritable, I’ll tell you. You think you can do it. When you’re 20, you think, ‘I can do this, I can control this, I can keep this secret.’ And then you get a few years under your belt and live in love with someone who doesn’t want you to fall in love with.

Wright became famous out as a lesbian in 2010 after nearly two decades in rural music. It may not seem like a big deal now, but at the time, no big stars Nashville were public members of the LGBTQIA+community. (While Kd lang Come out in 1992, she stopped making “country” music completely after her debut album.) As Wright wrote in her biography in 2010. Like me: Heart Country Singer AdmissionHiding her sexuality was nearly hidden to suicide, and came across pushing back from colleagues he had regarded as friends.

The landscape has changed a lot since then – artists like Carlile Brandi. Ty Herndon and TJ Osborne All out and proud – but Wright, who has sold more than 1.5 million records, knows that the fight for accepting is far from over.

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“People talk a lot about, ‘Oh, just come out, it’s safe to come out in rural music. … people don’t care anymore,'” he told Us. “I push back on that, because if you’ve dreamed of your whole life of becoming a country singing singer, record making, play The OLE OPRY GRANDGet a record deal, hear yourself on the radio, travel with the other artists in country singing – I think a lot of care and thinking has to go into how you feel, how safe you feel, what your psychological safety is at work. “

This is the “at work” part that Wright is focusing on these days. Since the coronavirus pandemic spent the livelihoods of traveling musicians everywhere, the artist left the music industry “single white female” left, picking into the corporate world, accepting a role as Chief Diversity Officer in the workplace at the Unispace Design Company in 2021 (her last album, I am the rainDropped in 2016.) Earlier this year, he was employed as Senior President of Corporate Social Responsibility and new growth in the market at the company experience and managing facilities in the World Workplace -En World Workplace.

In her new role, she will work to establish client and community partnerships that can make a difference in a world and locally. First, she helps host an event that will raise money for the communities of Pasadena and Altadena Affected by January Wildfires and aid very popular food suppliers. It’s a lot, but for Wright, it all comes back to that simple feeling of belonging.

“I know directly what it feels like you don’t fit in at work,” he told Us. “My hobby was not being a country singing artist. It was my job. That’s how I paid my bills. That’s how I ate, that’s how I paid my rent and paid my mortgage.”

Her own Experience coming out is what she led to the corporate world, as she had been sharing her story in various talking commitments since going public with her sexuality in 2010. When her traveling income during lock, her side was the busy side of her main meat, which eventually led to asymmetrical and now ISS. And while initially it may seem difficult to draw between the music industry and corporate social responsibility, Wright is quick to point out that you can’t succeed on Music Row without at least a few business acumen.

“When I arrived at Nashville, I realized, ‘Uh-Oh, all the other 7,000 people who moved to Nashville in 1989 who wanted a record contract as well if not better than me,” he remembered. “I understood very quickly, ‘okay, my differentian is going to be that I’m going to work them and go out.’”

In the early days, that meant everything from ordering her own shows to dealing with girl sellers and talking to the tour bus company.

“I really enjoyed a business,” explained Wright. “I have always enjoyed calculating things and finding a way to win, whether for my paper trail customers (as a child) or my country singing fans, or the people I’ve been able to work with when building design and now managing facilities. There’s a victory for everyone. And good business makes your client proud that they have spent their money with you again.”

While Wright is delighted to be starting her new meat in ISS (which has 320,000 workers worldwide), she has not fully closed the book on her country career. She calls herself a “song -by -heart composer” who keeps a ton of voice notes for songs on her phone, and is currently working on Broadway’s musical version of her biography with the legendary Jean Smart. She is also more than happy to discuss the state of singing today – and the way some things have still not changed for women in the industry.

When discussing the fact that Radio Country still prioritizes male artists over the numerous female singers Make waves todayWright remembered an event of her own career after her song “Single White Women” hit No. 1 in 1999. She had gone to a radio station to promote the single with an interview in the studio, but all the time she was there, the DJ never played her song. When he asked the program director about him, she told her that they could not play it because they had already played and Reba Mcentire Track in the previous hour.

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“My other women are women, they faced the same,” Wright remembered. “Think about how damaging that was for women (artists) in the sense that he rejected us from building a community. He rejected us from backstage, grabbing a guitar and writing a song when we were not on stage the way the men could refuse us to get to know each other and think of a journey together, ‘set next year.’ ” Set next year.

Those experiences that have learned wright the importance of a communityAnd that’s what she brings with her in her new episode.

“That’s why equity is important,” he declared. “That’s why it’s important that black and brown women and people and former people who are socially disadvantaged to the board have to be invited for a chance. Because if they’re not at the table, they’re going to have to do a bunch of other things to be caught up with the package, and it costs them more. It just refuses to grow up to come up to come up others come up others Others grow them up coming up others bring up others come to others that others grow to come. ”