Grammy nominee Brandi Carlile: As an ‘awkward lesbian,’ I don’t get sent suits
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 07: Brandi Carlile performs onstage at JONI 75: A Birthday Celebration Live at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on November 07, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
American rocker Brandi Carlile, who is the most nominated female artist at this year’s Grammy Awards, has said that fashion designers don’t send suits to an “awkward lesbian” like her, meaning that she has to buy her outfits with her own money.
Carlile, whose latest record By the Way, I Forgive You is up for six Grammy Awards, including album of the year, also discussed her love for wearing androgynous Gucci clothes in an interview with Variety published on Tuesday (February 5).
The 37-year-old musician told the publication that she has been maxing out on her credit cards because “the fashion designers don’t send clothes to the awkward lesbian that wants to dress like Freddie Mercury and Elton John.”
Brandi Carlile: I don’t get sent suits by fashion designers
Carlile, who has two children with her wife Catherine Shepherd, continued: “I’m obsessed right now with Gucci. And I like to wear it in kind of a gender-neutral way and really be shameless about it.”
A number of other celebrities have previously spoken out about why they believe fashion designers didn’t send them free clothes, including Beyoncé during her Destiny’s Child days and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend actor Rachel Bloom.
“I’m obsessed right now with Gucci. And I like to wear it in kind of a gender-neutral way and really be shameless about it.”
— Brandi Carlile
Carlile, who has released seven albums, also featured on the front cover of Variety‘s February magazine recreating the Patti Smith’s photoshoot for her 1975 album Horses.
Brandi Carlile in November 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for The Music Center)
Carlile released her critically-acclaimed and Grammy-nominated album By the Way, I Forgive You in February 2018.
Apart from Drake and Kendrick Lamar, she is the only musician to be nominated in the Grammy’s three top categories of album of the year; song of the year; and record of the year.
Other LGBT+ artists, including Janelle Monáe and three trans women—SOPHIE, Teddy Geiger and Jackie Shane—are up for accolades at this year’s Grammy Awards, which will be held on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Brandi Carlile explains that her Grammy nominated album is about fighting homophobia
The rocker also told Variety that her new record is partly about continually fighting homophobia.
“We started to confront some things we’d been carrying around,” she said.
Carlile continued: “Some hurts, some resentments, maybe some biases and some racism, maybe some internalised sexism and homophobia.
“We started airing it, lyrically and in conversations as a family.
“And I think that the album’s success has more to do with the world’s willingness to receive it right now than it does with what we’re actually saying, because there is a sense of wokeness, I think, that’s fallen over this country like a blanket.”
