Melissa Etheridge: 'Famous People Apologize To Me For Not Coming Out'

When Melissa Etheridge's fourth album "Yes I Am" catapulted her to international stardom in 1993, the record's title was especially significant considering she had publicly come out as a lesbian earlier that year. The media was riveted by the story of a mainstream artist admitting her homosexuality at a time when such a proclamation was still exceptionally taboo, and the coverage turned Etheridge herself into a magnet for coming-out stories, she told HuffPost Live on Friday.

During a conversation with host Ricky Camilleri about her latest album, "This Is M.E.," Etheridge recalled the period when she "talked about being a lesbian for three years, basically," but she said she didn't mind as long as she was "helping normalize this otherwise mysterious thing, this scary thing in the world."

But it turns out Etheridge wasn't the only one making such a personal confession.

"It was a time when actually more people came out to me. I had more reporters and people go, 'Can I tell you I'm gay?'' she said. "I had a lot of that. People still do that. Famous people do that to me. Famous people apologize to me for not coming out."

Check out Melissa Etheridge's recollections of coming out in the video above, and click here for the full HuffPost Live conversation .

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