Diana ross gay

6 Ways Diana Ross Has Earned Her Gay Icon Status

At this year’s American Harmony Awards (Nov. 19), Diana Ross will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to music. It goes without saying that the self-monikered “Boss” deserves the title after slaying the game for nearly 60 years starting with the iconic girl group The Supremes before becoming a magnetic solo act and all-round superstar.

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As a large portion of her fan base, the LGBTQ community has considered the legendary diva an OG gay icon for her dynamic personality and inspirational rise to the uppermost. BillboardPride celebrates The Boss’ latest accolade with six reasons on why she’s earned the title of gay icon.

Her Glitz & Glamour Has Always Been Admirable
Her fellow Supreme, Mary Wilson, reflected on how the girl group had a massive gay obeying. The legendary singer told GayStarNews “I think because we were so glamorous that it automatically was a great attraction

Diana Ross apparently didn't know 'I'm Coming Out' was about being gay

Most of us can consent that Diana Ross's musical partnership with Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards was an incredibly successful one.

The Supremes icon reinvented her sound for the disco era with the help of the two songwriters, and the resultant album - 1980's 'Diana' - proved one of her biggest hits.

Its tracklist contained songs appreciate 'Upside Down' and 'I'm Coming Out', and Nile Rodgers has shared an amusing anecdote regarding the latter - which has grow a gay anthem over the ensuing decades.

Rodgers revealed that he first got the idea for the song while in the bathroom of transgender nightclub GG's Barnum Room, where he was surrounded by Diana Ross lookalikes. "“All of a sudden a lightbulb goes off in my head,” he told the NY Announce. “I had to go outside and call Bernard from a telephone booth. I said, ‘Bernard, please write down the words: ‘I’m coming out.’ And then I explained the situation to him.”

He said that Ross "immediately loved the song" and identified with the idea of a person breaking free of constraints and out of their shell.

However - at least at the time - she

Diana Ross “didn’t understand” the same-sex attracted meaning behind “I’m Coming Out”

Legendary musician and producer Nile Rodgers has claimed that Diana Ross “didn’t understand” the LGBTQ association in her 1980 anthem “I’m Coming Out.”

Rodgers, who co-wrote and co-produced the song with Bernard Edwards, told the New York Post that Ross didn’t produce the connection between the anthem and gay people coming out of the closet.

Ross apparently loved the lyrics, Rodgers said, “[but] she didn’t understand that that was a gay thing, that that was a person saying, ‘I’m coming out of the closet.’ She didn’t even get that.”

Ross was eventually clued into the song’s inspiration after radio DJ Frankie Crocker thought “I’m Coming Out” was “Diana saying that she was gay,” Rodgers said.

The singer reportedly returned to the studio in tears and demanded to know why Rodgers wanted to ruin her career.

She was ultimately convinced to keep singing and promoting the gay anthem, after Rodgers convinced her that it would be a great way to introduce herself at c

Diana Ross didn’t recognize she was making a gay anthem when she recorded “I’m Coming Out” in 1979, says the man who co-wrote the track.

“She didn’t understand that that was a gay thing, that that was a person saying, ‘I’m coming out of the closet,’” recalled famed producer Nile Rodgers. “She didn’t even get that.”

Rodgers told the New York Post he was inspired to write the route after seeing Diana Ross impersonators in the bathroom of a Manhattan nightclub.

Ross sings: “The period has come for me / to break out of the shell / I have to shout / That I'm coming out.”

The singer only learned about the empowering song’s other interpretation after previewing it for an formative radio host. “He thought that that would be Diana saying that she was gay,” Rodgers said.

He convinced Ross that it would become the ballad she opened her concerts with for the rest of her career.

“I’m Coming Out” was the second single off the album Diana, which was released on May 22, 1980. It remains Ross’ most prosperous album.