I don't like country music, but she's an amazing singer. The interview was quite awkward. I'm not sure why they couldn't say it - Phil Donahue had an openly homosexual guest on this show more than a decade before this. I guess Arsenio Hall just wasn't as edgy

wtf is up with the background warping when the camera is on her?
(maybe some anti-shaky-cam filter applied to the old VHS recording)

She was someone who was trying to sell records and whose record label and management were adamant of the necessity to stay in the closet. Not the same thing as a private person.

If you listen to it again with that in mind, that she has been instructed to stay in the closet by folks eager to make money off her... she is subversively brilliant, I think. About as out and proud as you can be inside that straitjacket.

I remember when she came out of the closet. She was on the cover of a magazine, displayed prominently at the grocery store checkstand. Two women in line in front of me saw the cover. They were shocked -- SHOCKED I SAY -- that k d lang was a lesbian!

Different times. Nobody would be shocked today. She wouldn't be in the closet today.

I mean, look at Adam Lambert on American Idol. As gay as anything, and even he took a while to say it. (I think. I don't watch the show but I seem to remember huge speculation and then he finally just said it.)

And that was just a couple of years ago.

And that is why they couldn't just say it. Arsenio helped her say as best he could, she said it as best she could, within the constraints of the times.

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