Grammy winner Maren Morris made headlines last Pride Month when she opened up on Instagram, sharing that she was “Happy to be the B in LGBTQ+.” As GLAAD’s 2023 Excellence in Media Honoree, Morris has long been committed to supporting the queer community. To talk about this and more, Morris spoke with Angela Melero from TZR Magazine!
With her 4th studio album Dreamsicle dropping on Friday, Morris shared that it has “everything from something very folksy, singer-songwriter, stripped-back, to something you can dance to.” Also adding that it “Feels like the ’70s to me because it’s like Fleetwood Mac to Studio 54.”
She talked about how life after divorce and re-entering the dating scene has offered her a great deal of inspiration for the project, “I think you have to be able to laugh at the sad tragedies of life — to know that everything ends and it’s out of your control,” she said. “You can be upset about it and let it plague you forever and feel jaded. Or you can laugh and move on and take the lesson: better luck next time.”
She revealed that she’s been enjoying being single, “I can just sprawl out all my skin care and display all my fragrances.” But if she were to get into a new relationship, “I’ll be like, ‘You can live next door.’ Frida [Kahlo] and her husband, their bedrooms were connected by a bridge. That’s about as close as I want to be to someone.”
For much of her career, Morris made country music and spoke very openly about the discrimination that existed in the industry. She has since pivoted her art to be more pop music heavy and talked a bit about why, “Country music is not a classroom that you just leave. It’s a family. It’s a sound. It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion. That’s not what I meant when I was going through that transition. It was about: ‘Do I want to put my life’s work in the hands of some of these gatekeepers of mainstream country music?’”
She opened up about her decision to come out publicly last year, “I wanted to be able to connect with my fans and my queer community…Especially in a time where you’re in this free-for-all post-divorce reckoning, community has been so necessary for me and life-saving. Being honest and being vulnerable is the only way that you find community.”
She added, “I’ve always known that I am attracted to men and women…I think because I’ve been in straight relationships the last 15 years of my life, which has been consumed by my music career and living in Nashville, I never felt brave enough to talk about it.”
Read more at TZR!
Morris also recently launched a T-shirt campaign with GLAAD and TransLifeLine with all proceeds supporting the transgender community against the rising tide of anti-trans legislation, executive orders, and censorship that threaten their rights and safety.
The shirt is available here for purchase.
Maren Morris’s 4th Studio album Dreamsicle drops tomorrow! Watch Morris accept GLAAD’s Excellence in Media Award at the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards here:
