The singer told Joel Madden that the purposeful misgendering inspired her to officially come out at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration. Melissa Etheridge talks coming out on Joel Madden's "Artist Friendly" podcast on April 29, 2026. Artist Friendly/YouTube Melissa Etheridge had long had a very strong relationship with the LGBTQ community and planned to announce to the world that she is a lesbian after the release of her 1992 breakthrough album, Never Enough . For years, she’d had what she felt was an “unspoken” bond with her most loyal fans, even though she was not publicly out at the time. Explore See latest videos, charts and news “When my first album came out it was that unspoken thing,” Etheridge, 64, told Joel Madden on his Artist Friendly podcast on Wednesday (April 29) about the wink-wink understanding in the late 1980s. “I would go do a show and my first two rows would be women losing their minds, right? And I’m like, ‘I don’t know.  You know .…