Orville Peck’s new album, Mule, is shaping up to be the biggest of his career. It’s sent some new fans scurrying to check out his back catalogue.

One Heated Rivalry fan on Threads has only just discovered that actor François Arnaud featured in an Orville Peck music video from 2024. It was for the song, “How Far Will We Take It?”, a duet with Noah Cyrus. It featured on Peck’s previous album, Stampede.

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The video features a man and woman (Peck and Cyrus) sharing romantic feelings for the same man (played by Arnaud).

Arnaud came out as bisexual via an Instagram post in 2020 on Bisexual Visibility Day (September 23).

Watch the video below.

Queerty reported on the video at the time. However, that was before the huge success of Heated Rivalry, in which Arnaud played hockey star Scott Hunter. That show’s success has seen Arnaud’s profile soar.

In a post on Threads, one woman posted a GIF from the “How Far Will We Take It?” video and said, “How have I been in this fandom for 7 months now and I’ve never seen this until now?? ”

View on Threads

Others appeared to also be discovering the video for the first time.

Arnaud is currently busy filming the second season of Heated Rivalry. Other current or forthcoming projects include two TV mini-series: Alice and Count My Lies. It was recently announced he’s been cast in a dramedy called Godstar, and has joined the cast of a summer camp-set movie called Old Friends New Friends, alongside Kathryn Newton, Lucas Hedges and Patrick Schwarzenegger.

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In 2006, gay people were living through a new dark age. We were still trapped in the Bush era, years away from Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, and Ryan Murphy 360 programming. Even prominent Broadway stars didn’t feel comfortable coming out publicly.

But in November of that year, we witnessed two important watershed moments: Neil Patrick Harris officially came out, and American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken was outed.

To be fair, both men were outed: and both men used the occasion to come out on their own terms. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful. For Aiken, being accidentally outed by fellow gay icon Rosie O’Donnell on The View was, at the time, a deadly feeling.

It all started with the shush moment heard round the world: during an appearance on Live With Regis and Kelly, Aiken awkwardly put his hand over Kelly Ripa’s mouth in a moment he instantly regretted. Ripa was pissed, but her reaction accidentally launched Aiken into one of the most painful moments of his career.

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“I don’t know where that hand’s been, honey,” Ripa said.

When Rosie O’Donnell heard that, she was incensed. Responding to the incident on The View, where she served as moderator from 2006 to 2007, she classified Ripa’s words as “homophobic.”

“From where I sit as a gay person in the world, I have to tell you, that’s how it came off to me,” O’Donnell told Ripa directly when she called into the show.

But Aiken saw it differently. “You say defended,” Aiken recently told Page Six Radio’s Evan Real, “I say outed.”

While Aiken wouldn’t formally come out until two years later, he credits that moment as one of the most “catastrophic” in his career.

In 2006, being outed was serious business. But O’Donnell, one of the few out and proud celebrities of the time, wasn’t going to hold back. In an era soaked with casual homophobia, she was ready to call out bad behavior, perhaps not totally realizing that her comments reflected on Aiken’s personal life.

Another problem with 2006 is that you couldn’t simply call out language for being homophobic without the story becoming about another person’s sexuality. Today, celebrities of all sexualities are empowered enough to call out homophobic behavior when they see it. O’Donnell’s words, however, cut into Aiken’s hopes for a future mainstream career. His friend (and later co-parent) called him up after The View aired, saying: “You need to wake up because Rosie just outed you.”

These days, it’s all water under the bridge. “I don’t have any ill feelings against Rosie,” Aiken says. “She did mean well. Her words were chosen in the heat of, like, why the hell is [Ripa] on live TV with me right now?”

O’Donnell’s words certainly weren’t meant to embarrass or out the “Invisible” singer, especially since queer people were rooting for the American Idol runner-up long before he came out. Even if the culture was homophobic, queer fans knew what we had in Aiken: someone whose soft masculinity felt like a welcome departure from the toxic, aggressively straight expectations for men during those dark days.

The world might not have been ready for Aiken in 2006, in the closet or out of it. But queer people were desperate for what he had to give. We were always on his side, and we still are—and Rosie is, too.

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Nick Pringle knew that posing as a male escort at the RNC would be a dangerous assignment.

But it appears that the promiscuous project has brought on even more backlash than the popular left-leaning influencer could’ve imagined.

In a video posted Tuesday, Pringle, who uses his platform to rail against Republicans and their attacks on LGBTQ+ people, says he’s received a swarm of death threats since his apparent undercover operation.

“It was genuinely scary,” he said. “These are people who have and will kill to keep this secret.”

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Despite the vitriol, Pringle says he will reveal the names of Republicans who solicited his services at “Tr*mp-a-Palooza” this month in Dallas… in Part 2.

“This has been a delicate situation,” he said. “But don’t worry. I will be naming names in this video.”

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Noble cause, questionable approach

Pringle is an ardent LGBTQ+ ally. In a recent video, he laid out why the administration’s attacks on trans people are everybody’s business.

“When they start taking rights, they don’t stop until they get to you,” he said.

As for those who claim they’ll never be targeted because they aren’t doing anything “wrong,” Pringle had some news for them.

“They’re gonna change what illegal means so it fits what you’re already doing,” he added.

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When Pringle announced his intention to expose Republicans at the RNC, he explained his rational: he wanted to out them as hypocrites.

“[I want] to expose Republicans and religious lawmakers for the hypocrites that they are: championing and writing legislation that actively make the lives harder for the LGBTQ+ community while engaging in homosexual activities,” he said.

He said he expected to receive threats. “If this is the last message you hear from me, I’m either dead or I’ve been sufficiently threatened,” he explained.

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A post shared by Nick Pringle (@original_pringles)

While we appreciate Pringle’s MO, his cheeky insinuations make us think his stunt may have just been exactly that.

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What happened with Grindr at the RNC?

Unsurprisingly, another large gathering of Republicans produced reported widespread Grindr outages. While Grindr denies the charge, it is funny to think about. And if there were any horny hunters in Dallas, GOP officials provided them with some Grade A material: a thirst trap of leftist streamer Hasan Piker.

Over the ensuing days, MAGA’s crush on Piker reached peak levels of insanity. Their candidates and media lackeys couldn’t stop harping on him.

As far as Pringle, he says he used Grindr at “Tr*mp-a-Palooza.” He found it to be a digital meat market that he wasn’t expecting (do your homework dude)!

“Grindr, I was expecting it to be like Tinder,” he said. “It was not.”

Did Pringle really pose as an escort?

It’s unclear. While we never want to accuse an ally of lying… he hasn’t offered any proof.

Yet.

Pringle went dark in the days after the RNC, reemerging on September 14 to give his followers a proof of life. “I’ve had to go radio silent over the last few days, because as you can imagine, I’ve been fielding a considerable amount of death threats,” he said.

He goes on to share screenshots of the IG accounts sending him threats.

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A post shared by Nick Pringle (@original_pringles)

In his most recent video, Pringle again talks about the death threats, saying they raise his suspicion about closeted Republicans even more. “Doth death threat too much,” he said.

But after another video in which Pringle doesn’t name names, we’re beginning to think whether “doth tease too much.”

He lays the groundwork for an underwhelming conclusion.

“It was really hard to tell who was there for the RNC and who is some random gay dude who happened to live in Dallas,” he said.

You know what they say: a headless torso is a headless torso, bro!

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Melania Tr*mp dropped by Fox & Friends this week to discuss her mysterious new female “empowerment” venture, promote her upcoming docuseries nobody asked for, and wax nostalgic about how delightful it was to grow up in Eastern Europe under authoritarian rule.

When asked about her new two-part docuseries being release by Amazon later this year, the first lady said it’s not just a rehash of her documentary MELANIA, which bellyflopped at the box office earlier this year… to the tune of -$65 million.

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“It will be very different what is in the movie,” she promised. “It’s more conversation one-on-one with me.”

She continued, “So when I was traveling and doing all of the filming, the director was asking me questions, and there’s some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before, so it’s kind of exciting.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Melania was asked whether Eastern Europeans have a greater appreciation for freedom than Americans. That’s when she started gushing about living under the iron fist of benevolent dictator Josip Broz Tito as a child.

“I grew up under communism, and actually, I didn’t miss anything,” she said. “I feel I had very beautiful childhood.”

Quick history lesson… Melania was born in 1970 and grew up in socialist Yugoslavia, a communist-led federation made up of six republics, including her native Slovenia. Unlike the Soviet bloc, Yugoslavia followed its own path under Tito, who used terror, violence, censorship, and one-party dominance to maintain control for over 35 years, from late 1944 until his death in May 1980.

While Melania did admit that, yeah, sure, living under communism has some drawbacks–“You’re watched over what you do. It’s not as free as here in United States”–at the end of the day, she didn’t think it was all that bad.

“My parents provide beautiful childhood for my family,” she recalled with fondness.

It’s a fascinating perspective, especially when you consider her 80-year-old husband has spent the ramp-up to this year’s midterms warning about how the threat of communism is greater than ever.

He’s criticized the Democratic Party for “becoming a communist party” and labeled some Democrats “hardcore, godless communists” for supporting things like, you know, trans healthcare and LGBTQ+ rights.

In his 4th of July Fourth address, Tr*mp said: “Communism is a loser and it always will be. … Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We’re not gonna let it happen.”

Anyway, back to Melania’s upcoming docuseries… if you can even call two episodes a “series.”

The first lady didn’t say exactly when it would be released. In fact, she gave three answers different answers: “any day,” “maybe November,” and “we don’t have an exact date yet.” But what we do know is it’s once again being distributed by Amazon and that accused sexual predator/Jeffrey Epstein buddy Brett Ratner is the director.

In August, Ratner took to Instagram to gush about how he couldn’t “wait to share with everyone around the world the next two chapters of Melania, the docuseries!”

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A post shared by Brett Ratner ברט רטנר (a prince) (@brettrat)

Amazon invested $75 million into Melania’s documentary, which ended up making less than $17 million at the international box office. Theaters generally keep 50% of box office revenue, which means Amazon only made $9 million off the film, generating an estimated net theatrical loss of roughly $65 million.

And yet, Amazon is about to dump another fortune into the sequel. Because apparently, like America in 2024, the streamer insists on paying for a second term.

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A UK politician has received praise for his reaction after his Grindr profile appeared all over X and Facebook.

Paul O’Neill is a Labour councilor in Rochdale in the north of England. He serves the North Heywood ward. Labour is the UK’s major left-wing party, and its leader, Andy Burnham, became the current Prime Minister in July.

According to the Manchester Evening News, someone posted screenshots of O’Neill’s Grindr profile to Facebook. They claimed they “nosied on grinder coz I’m curious what it’s all about”.

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O’Neill’s profile includes a photo of him wearing a leather harness and showing off a bear paw tattoo. Another shows him in a leather shirt. The person who posted them to Facebook said they found the profile a “bit disturbing.”

In his bio, O’Neill described himself as “Gay/bi curious … bear cub … Into politics, football, running, swimming, theatre/creative arts. And beer. NO Reform voters, anti-trans bigots, thanks.”

Reform is a far-right party that has gained ground in the UK in recent years.

Far-right accounts quickly picked up the screenshots and spread them across X.

“I am not remotely ashamed to have a social and dating life”

O’Neill responded with a post on Facebook yesterday.

“It’s been brought to my attention that two people have decided to visit a gay men’s dating app I’m a member of, create an account for themselves, and then find my profile, screen shot it, and share it on social media, complete with some rather unpleasant comments.

“The reasons why those people decided to create gay dating accounts for themselves were ‘curiosity’ and ‘verifying’ that I had a profile, apparently.

“I’ll leave it for readers to make their own minds up about THAT bit.

“I’m glad that my photos were recent, as I’ve lost 3 stone since February. I’m only sorry these two characters couldn’t wait a few more weeks before invading my privacy, as I’ve just started going back to the gym, and I might have looked even more fabulous than I already did at the Manchester Pride 2026 event most of the photos are from.

“Joking aside, there are more revealing photos of many straight men and women at the beach or at the gym all over social media, I am not remotely ashamed to have a social and dating life, and it obviously affects not a jot my work as a proud ward councillor for the brilliant people of North Heywood.

“If you think I’m rubbish at being a councillor, that’s fine. But it isn’t because, like millions of other people, straight, gay and everything else, I have a profile on a dating app. And for the record, I’m single. Worst thing that can happen is I might get a date or two out of this, right?

He ended by promoting the date of his next ward surgery (when members of the public can meet with their councilmember), quipping, “I’ll be dressed more conservatively, promise. ”

“Best of British to you”

Many praised O’Neill’s response.

“I don’t know why this is in my feed, I don’t know where Heywood is, or who you are but well said. If you’re upsetting the sort of people who still think ‘outing’ someone for having a profile on a gay dating site is a huge ‘gotcha’, then the chances are you’re probably a decent enough chap. Top day to you sir,” said one woman.

Another woman said, “This just came up on my feed and though I’m not a Heywood resident I met Paul in a Rochdale bar in June. He chatted to me about my watch then checked was it ok chatting to me – such a polite thing to do. He told me he was a local councillor so I know this is the same pleasant guy and I’m appalled at what’s been done by people who need to get a life.”

One man replied, “Great response and best of British to you. Keep outing the bigots and keep representing your community. I am a straight married Christian white male. I spent 4 years as a local Cllr. It scares me to see how people who aren’t like me are being targeted by bigots. Nothing but respect for you and other people who stand up and speak out, stay safe and hope you at least score a decent date out of this.”

O’Neill followed it up today with a joke meme about finding “Fame at last, eh?”

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School is in session at Minvera Academy, and these kids are learning a lot more than the books teach them.

Netflix’s new Italian coming-of-age drama Minvera Academy just dropped this week and is centered around Minerva Military High School and its students, as they grapple with a variety of issues.

As is par for the course for any teen series, we see the students navigate discipline, school hierarchies, and—you guessed it!—sexuality.

Throughout the series Salvo Fusco (Ciro Minopoli) seeks to discover the truth about his friend Francesco’s disappearance. During his search, Salvo meets Diego (Simone Secce), who is also holding onto some secrets.

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When we first meet Diego, he is dating Rachele. While their relationship seems secure, we see hime develop feeling for Camila, a new recruit at Minerva.

Spoiler alert! Diego and Camila later have a rendezvous of their own. And of course, while Diego might fit the straight boy player archetype that has existed in teen dramas since the dawn of television, there is a bit more than meets the eye.

Before Francesco (Luigi Bruno) disappeared, Diego and Francesco took pictures together at a party. While in the photobooth, the two shared a kiss. Diego, having never experienced attraction toward another boy, struggles with these feelings, and the struggle is magnified when Francesco disappears.

This does not necessarily mean Diego’s feelings toward Rachele and Camila weren’t real. But it does indicate that Diego may be bisexual or pansexual.

We’ll keep the details of the rest of the season to a minimum, as the story takes quite a few twists and turns, but the series arrives in time for Bisexual Visibility Month and is getting a lot of buzz online. 

Granted, while the series has its dark moments, it’s refreshing to have a bisexual storyline that feels complex and nuanced.

Some may argue that one’s sexuality shouldn’t be used as a plot twist, but Diego’s alleged queerness goes deeper than most teen dramas, as viewers see him understand that these feelings weren’t limited to sex. Diego may have had romantic feelings toward Francesco.

The season ends with a good amount of questions answered, but room to explore more. All eight episodes of Minerva Academy season 1 are currently available to stream on Netflix. A second season has not yet been announced.

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Usually when politicians take to the Senate floor, it’s to talk about important issues facing the country. That’s not the case for Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville. Yesterday, Tuberville took the floor for 20 minutes to decry one of the worst problems facing this nation, in his opinion: furry pilots.

You heard that right: according to Tuberville, the biggest threat to Americans these days isn’t skyrocketing gas prices or the egregious cost of living. It’s that certain people who fly airplanes might have a furry fetish. He also spent a large chunk of his speech going after trans people, calling transgender identity “a mental disease” and advocating for us to be institutionalized. He also appeared to blame the existence of trans people for the existence of furries who happen to have jobs as pilots.

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The best (or worst) part? Tuberville felt the need to illustrate his speech using the pregnant man emoji.

This same man, in 2022, attempted to push through a bill that would have banned trans children’s participation in school sports nationwide. That bill ultimately failed, but Tuberville’s logic is alive and well in the sweeping anti-trans legislation focused on keeping little girls out of school sports in 2026. For the GOP senator, it’s still not enough.

Tuberville is much less passionate about the actual issues, such as gas prices. This week, Tuberville basically told constituents to suck it up. “We voted for him,” Tuberville said of Tr*mp.

Um… speak for yourself, diva. Even though Alabama—an overwhelmingly red state—did indeed vote for Tr*mp, they most likely did not cast that vote in the hopes that they would be in a state of endless war with gas prices (and grocery bills) to match.

Tuberville might assume his constituents agree with his backwards thinking on trans rights, but he might want to think again. Earlier this year, CNBC released a report disclosing the 10 states with the worst quality of life in the country. Alabama had no trouble making the list. At #8 on the ranking, the deep red state—already home to plenty of anti-trans legislation—was found to be suffering a severe mental health crisis of its own.

An October 2025 report ranked the state among the country’s worst for mental health care, coming in last at #50. The crisis seems to have been created by the fact that a disproportionate number of adults suffer from mental health struggles, and there aren’t enough care providers in the state to serve them.

You’d think that this crisis might be Tuberville’s top priority—but apparently not. Instead, it’s “furry pilots” and the trans people that, in Tuberville’s mind, have some causal link to the furry pilot epidemic.

Here’s the good news: in 2022, Tuberville’s anti-trans thinking was right on target. In 2026, it’s no longer the reliable boogeyman that MAGA Republicans have counted on to get their way for the past four years. Increasingly, Americans across party lines are less worried about trans people coming to convert their children into furry pilots, and more concerned with the tactile issues facing them in daily life: i.e. gas prices, grocery bills, and the general cost of living.

Taking all this into account, Tuberville might be in for a surprise on November 3rd. When you put all your eggs into the anti-trans basket, don’t be surprised if even the deepest red states get wise to the con.

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Matt Rogers is the latest guest to sit down with Katya for her ‘Who’s the A**hole?’ podcast for Grindr.

Given the podcast is produced for the hookup app, the conversation often turns spicy, and Rogers did not disappoint.

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He reflected on his own use of the app, admitting he’s recently been refamiliarising himself with Grindr after taking a break.

Rogers, 36, was in a very public relationship with Below Deck reality star Fraser Olender. They went Instagram official by posting photos together from the red carpet of Bravocon Live in Las Vegas last November.

They reportedly split up in the spring, then reunited for a few weeks, before again going their separate ways.

Rogers is now single and back on Grindr. He revealed to Katya that he sometimes has people questioning if he’s really Matt Rogers or just someone catfishing with his photos.

The conversation turned to bedroom action. Katya recounted a time she enjoyed a hookup but it didn’t involve b*tt stuff. This prompted Rogers to fondly recall his own love for frottage.

“I used to frott my way all over New York City,” Rogers reveals, before explaining that frotting, or frottage, is the act or rubbing one’s d*ck on another guy’s body.

“Dry humping… s*x without any insertion,” he says.

“Frotting doesn’t happen as much”

Rogers enjoyed frottage so much in his early 20s, he even wondered what the point of f*cking might be. Wouldn’t it just hurt?

“Now I’m a huge fan of penetration,” he adds.

Asked what message he would give his younger self, he jokes, “It gets better!”, referring to the mechanics of penetrative fun.

Later on, he identifies the year 2010 as his peak frotting period.

“To be honest with you, frotting doesn’t happen as much. I wish it would happen more.”

Although it’s a jokey conversation, Rogers makes a serious point. Frottage is an often-overlooked, pleasurable aspect of intimacy that requires no douching or preparation (although some lube may be handy!).

Thailand trip

Elsewhere in the conversation, Rogers reveals that he doesn’t think he has a type. He also talks about a dreamy trip to Thailand he enjoyed earlier in the year with his “ex”. We presume he’s referring to Olender.

Katya asked him to name the best vacation he had with a partner or lover, and Rogers says, “My ex and I went to Thailand earlier this year, and it was the most beautiful vacation ever.”

Katya suggests that Thailand is often so humid between 11am and 1pm, there’s not much else to do besides stay indoors and… well, have fun.

Rogers confirms, “We had a wonderful time, and it was like one of those things where we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And also we were broken up so we went on, like, not a f*ck trip but like a nice, beautiful f*ck trip. And then we got back together, but now we’re not.”

You can watch the whole discussion below.

Rogers is best known for co-hosting the Las Culturistas podcast with good friend Bowen Yang. He’s also in the RuPaul movie, Stop! That! Train!, which is out on Netflix this week.

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Katya pauses projects to concentrate on health

We presume this episode of ‘Who’s The A**hole’ was recorded before Katya, real name Brian McCook, made an announcement about pausing work to concentrate on her health.

Last week, on her official Instagram account, a statement read: “Katya will be taking time away from upcoming projects and live events so she can prioritize her health following recent medical complications. A full recovery is anticipated.

“With the support of her family, her team, and Trixie, she appreciates everyone’s patience and understanding during this time. Her fans have always been so gracious, and that means everything to her.”

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A post shared by Katya Zamolodchikova (@katya_zamo)

Katya has been open about struggles with substance misuse, mental health, and physical health issues. This has included spells in rehab, including one in 2024.

In 2023, Katya underwent anterior total hip arthroplasty (hip replacement) on the right side. Then, in the spring of this year, she was hospitalized for a bowel obstruction in the small intestine, requiring emergency surgery. She spent ten days with a nasogastric tube, unable to eat or drink (“absolute hell on earth”), before recovering at home. She has since canceled appearances due to medical complications.

Here’s wishing her all the very best with her ongoing recovery.

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Thirty years ago this fall, singer-songwriter Paula Cole released This Fire, the album that would change everything for her as a defining record of the era.

Lead single “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?”—a Western-inflected critique of gender roles—became her first Billboard Top 10 hit, and the album’s breakthrough success led to a whopping seven Grammy nominations, including a win for Best New Artist, plus a headlining slot on the first-ever Lilith Fair, founded by her friend & tour mate Sarah McLachlan.

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And perhaps you’ve heard of a little song called “I Don’t Want To Wait”? When This Fire‘s second single was tapped to be the theme song of The WB’s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, Cole was happy to oblige, not realizing what a sensation the show would become. What started as a very personal track about familial trauma now belonged to the world, synonymous with teenaged angst and melodrama.

“It eclipsed me,” Cole admits, sharing how frustrating that was for her at the time. But now, all these years later, she’s able to appreciate it for the gift that it was—and still is: “It’s the song of my life.”

She’s been doing a lot of reflecting lately. This month, she unveiled Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989 – 1998, a double-volume collection of archives, demos, and other memories from the earlier days of her career. She’s also just embarked on the This Fire: 30 tour, playing the landmark album in full in celebration of the special anniversary. Three decades on, Cole remains in awe of her younger self, and is able to see much her past work through a new lens, especially after publicly embracing her identity as a bisexual woman, which she struggled to understand for so long.

So it felt like the perfect time to invite Cole to be the latest guest in our long-running Q&A series, Dishin’ It. In our conversation, the artist opens up about the “intuitive accident” that led to her Sonic Memoir project, the way she wrote “in code” to address her queerness before she could fully accept it, and how Lilith Fair’s legacy led directly to Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival—which she hopes to be a part of in the coming years!

Is there a piece of media—whether a movie, TV series, book, album, theater, video game, etc…—that has played an important role in your understanding of queerness and the queer community, or your own identity? Why does it stand out to you?

I think touring with Melissa Etheridge in ’95—I mean, I’d already been kind of immersed in different scenes, different LGBTQ+ scenes, and from the Russian River in California, to Clubstitute in San Francisco, to a lot of my sister’s friends, to landing with Melissa Etheridge. And it’s hard to pinpoint for me because I think, as a bisexual woman, I struggled with acceptance and understanding, so it flowed under the surface for me, and I didn’t know how to identify. I ended up in a lot of straight relationships, I’m married to a man, so it felt like a denial of who I was, in a way. This is a more recent thing for me, to kind of come out and say that, because it feels that’s the truth of who I am. It doesn’t reflect my current commitment, but it reflects my truth and my past.

So I would say Melissa Etheridge’s Yes I Am and being on that tour, specifically, and her singing that song. It was so fascinating—culturally and anthropologically—to be looking out at the audience when she would sing yes I am, and to to see half of the audience totally understanding and feeling vindicated and singing along with her, and the other [half] looking kind of confused. That was really interesting!

Congratulations on the amazingly expansive Sonic Memoir endeavor. You’ve been working pretty consistently on new music since the ‘90s, so why did now feel like the time to dive into this career retrospective? What inspired it?

It was an intuitive accident. I was spending a lot of time at home because my mom passed away this [past] March, so I was quieter stage in my career. Through all of my moves, I had managed to keep all these shoeboxes full of cassette tapes, DAT tapes, ADAT tapes—these obsolescent formats of work. And my friend Mark Hutchins—who was my partner in the ’90s—he had passed away, and I wanted to digitize so that his family could hear the work he made when he was in his 20s.

So I was running cassettes up to a mastering lab in Maine, and I realized, oh my gosh, I had a mountain of my own demos from this period of my life. It was a really colorful, eccentric, prolific part of my life. I was writing every day, I was demoing every day because that’s what you had to do in the in the ’80s & ’90s. I had probably over 100 songs. So I decided I’m going to digitize these, and I’m just going to keep listening. And when I realized the 30th anniversary of This Fire was coming up, it just felt timely.

And it’s been an enormous pain in the *ss. [Laughs.] It’s been so time consuming, such a heavy lift. I mean, to start from 100 songs and cull down to 63? It’s a very expensive undertaking. I was talking to a record label, thinking about collaborating at one point, but they wanted to change and edit, and I didn’t want to do that anymore! I want to be free and have my own label, even if it means less success. I want to be creatively free, I want to deliver this to the real fans who are interested in hearing the earlier incarnations of the songs they know, and then to find the archives of songs that they haven’t heard. There’s some really interesting sh*t in there! So this is a love letter to my fans.

It’s me telling my story, owning my narrative, telling some of the stories I haven’t told—because you were at the mercy of what the record company pressured you to be back then. So I’m showing, warts and all, the process of an artist finding herself from being a student to a rebel making mistakes in the demos, keeping the mistakes, finding herself. It’s a process. It’s a nine-year process, and it’s also a process that led me to becoming a producer. So I’m grateful for it all.

Despite all of the hard work, what was the most fun or surprising part of the process of going through your archives?

I guess some of the surprises were that I was such an eccentric. [Laughs.] And I love that! I want to embrace and lean even harder into my eccentricity. So it was it good to visit her. There there was a lack of self-consciousness in a lot of the work prior to fame, catching up with This Fire.

And also I can’t believe just how damn prolific I was! But that was me being in pain and having traumas from childhood, which found its way through the healing force of music. It helped me to understand my whole circle of life. Like, no wonder I’ve been so prolific: I’ve been in so much screaming pain—you know, quietly here, beneath my skin, without anyone knowing—that I had to do something with it, and that is create. I’m not happy unless I’m working and busy. So it makes me prolific, for better or for worse.

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It’s your more recent song, “Wildflower,” where you sing more openly about navigating your identity and embracing your bisexuality, but I’m curious if, in the process of revisiting your past work, demos, etc… do you feel there are specifics songs where you were maybe trying to tell this to the world before you were ready to openly share?

Oh, sure! I was singing in code a lot. Singing in code in poetry. Like, everything from “Carmen”—which is an androgynous name! I was using poetic license; I substituted someone’s name. I was in love with a woman, and I didn’t tell her until 2023 that the song was for her, because I knew she didn’t reciprocate my feelings. Or writing in a male perspective, like the song “Yes”—which is a is part of Sonic Memoir—or even “Black Boots.” Just feeling very “other.” Alone. It comes out as poetry; it’s in code.

A code which, whether we were always conscious of it or not, I think your queer fans have been able to understand. We were finding ourselves in this music, too, even if it wasn’t so literal—

You’re going to make me cry, because that really did help me. I can tell you, with some of my fans—and even some of the interviews like this—I’ve realized, “Oh wow, a lot of the queer community is paying attention. This is so interesting: I’m being seen, and I am seeing myself!” But this is what happens: I’m very slow to understand my own feelings—that’s why I need music so so badly. And I’ve been a perfectionist trying to please my parents; I’m kind of perpetually caught in that childhood dysfunctional persona of walking on eggshells and trying to be perfectionistic with myself, which is prison.

So it’s been difficult for me to understand my own feelings. But seeing the freedom in other people—and seeing their seeing of me—was like shining a bright spotlight into my soul. And it felt scary sometimes! Actually, it’s funny: It’s still very vulnerable for me to talk about.

And also, with the 30th anniversary of This Fire, there’s a song that’s been really special to the LGBTQ+ community, and that’s “Hush, Hush, Hush.” It was written for a friend who died prematurely. He got AIDS when I was living in San Francisco, and I was part of the queer community there. It was just really shocking what was going on; we still didn’t have solutions, and it was terribly frightening. My sister—god bless her—she was a hospice nurse and helping a lot of AIDS patients. So, when it was Gay Pride in San Francisco in those times, when the hospice nurses would march, you just couldn’t even believe the applause and the tears.

But that song is, with some poetic license, about his journey passing to the other side, and Peter Gabriel makes an appearance personifying his father. So, I put my feelings to music. When things get difficult or complicated, and I have nowhere to go, I go to the music, and it it heals me and it helps me. And I hope that it’s done that for other people, too.

Speaking of This Fire, thinking back to that Paula of 30 years ago, the one who was preparing to share that project with the world, what would you want her to know? Or what advice would you give her?

You know, when I think back to her—when I was gestating all those thoughts and feelings that would become This Fire—I think she actually has it pretty well together because she is listening herself, and that’s so powerful. I was liberating myself from the confines and the constructs of what my parents wanted me to be. Less polite, less beautiful, less sexy, but owning my sexuality.

That naked photo of me on the cover was me and my girlfriend Jodie [Olsen] outside in the backyard, and it’s me owning that. Because how many times I’d been put in that horrible situation, of being with some photographer who wants to get you half naked—it was so abusive! But that record cover, it was me and my friend and nobody else, and I was gonna claim the purity of my body, you know? It wasn’t sexual; it was just free, and that’s what it represented: freedom.

So there was a lot about my 20-something-year-old self that was dialed into my wisdom and listening to myself. I think I was a lot to handle. I needed therapy badly, probably, at that time. I had gone to therapy at the end of college, which is what helped me start writing in the first place. And I’m in therapy now, but there was a lot in the middle that really would have helped. I think I didn’t understand the burden of the gift I had—now I can say that at 58; that would’ve sound pompous to say [then.] But looking back, all through Berklee College of Music and being given awards and praise and seeing where I land, I realize now, “Oh, I really do have a gift.” I had a gift, and I was kind of ashamed to own that, or allow it and feel confident about myself.

So the plague I’ve been fighting my whole life is diffidence, which is a lack of self-confidence, and I wish I could have told myself to find more emotional support. And to not say yes to anything that didn’t feel right, to feel good about saying no, to not marry that man that was my first marriage, you know? My body was telling me not to do that, and I did it because I thought my Yankee, puritanical self needed to please my parents and the neighbors and the culture—because I was a single mom with his child, and I thought I had to. That was a trap.

My body is old and wise; I wish I had listened to her. That’s true for anybody: listen to your body. What is it telling you? Are you comfortable around this person? Do you feel comfortable with that decision or that thought? Your mind can trick you a million ways, but your body is wise. Listen to your body.

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Of course, This Fire includes “I Don’t Want To Wait,” which has become a timeless piece of the culture in its own right thanks in part to Dawson’s Creek. What has it meant for you to become synonymous with that show, a series that has meant to much to many of us for SO many reasons, not least of which because it featured one of TV’s earliest positive gay teen relationships?

What a ride it’s been! That started as my song, for my grandfather, my grandparents—the whole concept of generational trauma. My grandfather fought in the Battle of Okinawa in WWII, he came home bombed in the legs. He already had his own childhood traumas, but then he passed on even more trauma—PTSD from the war—to my family, my father, to me, and it made me think about all that generational cyclical pain, and how I didn’t want to be repeating it. I don’t want to do what his father and his father and his father did. I want to be here now. It’s like me wanting to be awake and alert as to who I am.

And so it started as being my song. Then I was asked by Kevin Williamson for it to be used for a pilot—I had been asked a whole bunch of times for my songs to be in pilots of TV shows. Usually they lasted a season, if that, and no one thinks of it ever again. But this? This was unstoppable. This was special. And it coincided with me taking my hiatus and stepping away for eight years from the music business and having my daughter, getting married, getting divorced, relocating—all that. And it just eclipsed me.

It was so enormous and so loved that, for a while, I was kind of shocked and frustrated? Like, “Wait a minute, I’m a career artist. I want to be known for the entirety of my catalog, and not as a television theme show song.” So I was mad, but that only works for you briefly because, one, it’s such a waste of life energy to hold anger, and it’s unhealthy. Two, it’s beautiful! C’mon, get over it, Paula! It’s joyful—everyone wants to sing. It has this nostalgic, uplifting quality. It unifies a room. I’m blown away. Now I bow to what it has become. It’s not even mine anymore; it’s the people’s song.

It’s incredible! How lucky is that? Even if you just have one of those ever in your lifetime? Oh my god. It’s the song of my life.

I recently had the pleasure of attending Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival, and I don’t think that would exist without Lilith Fair, which you were a part of from the beginning. Looking back, what did it mean for you to be a part of that, and what do you make of Daisy Chain Fields as a potential signifier of where the industry is heading?

Gen X and Gen Z! [Laughs.] These are our daughters! I’m so proud of Olivia Rodrigo. I’m so happy because Sarah McLachlan has been saying for years it served its purpose, but if it happens again, it shouldn’t be Lilith fair with the same people, it should be then next generation. So I know that she’s deeply gratified that the torch is being passed. It took a while!

But Lilith Fair was born out of my touring with Sarah in the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy 1995 era, when two women wouldn’t even be played in the same hour of a radio station’s airtime. We were actively discouraged to have two women on a bill—yet she had me. She heard Harbinger, she was supporting me, and had me open for her, loyally, all across the United States. And I would just say, every night to the audience, “Let’s give a hand to Sarah McLachlan for having me, a woman, open for her because this is not done. You don’t understand: We are actively discouraged; we’re told we don’t sell tickets!” And the audience would rise to their feet and erupt with the zeitgeist of applause—clearly we struck a nerve. Audiences knew it was f*cked up. They knew change was needed.

So then we had the test pilot shows for Lilith Fair in ’96 with Suzanne Vega and Lisa Loeb, and then Sarah and her incredible team created the first Lilith Fair in ’97, and it was just a runaway success that ran for three years. I’m so honored to have been part of its formation and part of its ideation. I love Sarah; I think she’s an incredible human being—not just a beautiful singer and songwriter, but a really incredible person. It’s only someone like that who is just extroverted enough, friendly enough, gregarious enough who can unite all these people and make it go. She can take a blow on the chin and stay good natured, [which is] really special, because there’s a whole lot of sensitive introverts like myself who would be hiding in the tour bus. She was just an incredible leader, and she made that happen.

So now I’m I’m moved, and I’m proud of Olivia Rodrigo. It’s perfect. God, I hope I can be on it one year! That would be amazing. I want to meet these Gen Z folks. That’s that’s my daughter’s age; she’s a Olivia Rodrigo fan, so we’ve been listening to her in the car!

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In closing: Who is an LGBTQ+ artist/performer/creator that you think is doing really cool work right now? Why are they someone we should all be paying attention to?

Well, I don’t think Sophie B. Hawkins gets enough dues. She really was a boundary breaker. In her lyrics of her first single, she was being open about her queerness and has been a champion, but doesn’t get her flowers.

And there’s an artist, Deni Hlavinka, who—along with Hadley Kennary—I actually recommended to be Tori Amos’s background singers. She’s been on tour and has brought out three singers called the Angel Witches, but two of them were my people, and I’m so happy that it all worked out because I knew they would be great. But Deni goes by Fire Swimmer, and you can find her on Spotify—her version of “Cowboy Take Me Away” is so cool.

Paula Cole’s two-volume archival collections Sonic Memoir: Demos 1989-1998 is available now. Catch her this fall on the This Fire: 30 nationwide tour—tickets & more information here.

Related

Queer pop stars, A-list allies and $20 million: How Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields set a new festival standard
Lilith Fair’s heir apparent was such a gay affair, even surprise guest Alanis Morissette felt compelled to update some classic lyrics: “It’s [like] meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful… husband.”

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