It’s been 25 years since k.d. lang released her breakout album Ingenue, selling 2.5 million copies worldwide and earning the Canadian crooner a Grammy for her chart-topping single Constant Craving.
Now, the singer is ready to celebrate her lengthy career with a brand new cross-Canada tour, as she reflects on her time in the spotlight and how her sexuality was thrust into the spotlight.
Speaking with ET Canada’s Roz Weston, lang says the questions about her sexuality came flooding in as Ingenue took off.
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“I came out to my mom when I was 17 so it was not an issue for me. I just assumed everyone knew I was a lesbian,” she says.
However, lang tells Weston that it wasn’t enough. She needed to explicitly confirm her sexual orientation. “They needed me to say it and there was a lot of debate among my people – my record company, my managers and my people around me – whether or not it was a smart idea.”
Ultimately, lang decided to publicly answer the question in an interview with The Advocate, using the focus to put the spotlight on the AIDS crisis.
“When it came down to the actual moment when I was asked by The Advocate magazine in 1992, there was no question it was the socially-responsible thing to do,” she says of the interview.
Now, 25 years later, lang is celebrating the release of Ingenue with her 17-city Ingenue Redux Tour. Kicking off in August, lang will perform 23 shows across her native Canada, playing her breakout album track-by-track from beginning to end.
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It’s a good thing lang has some time to get ready for the tour, joking with ET Canada that she needs time to prepare.
“Do you remember all the words?” Roz asks.
“Not at this moment!” she laughs. “I have time to learn them.”
The Ingenue Redux Tour kicks off on August 12 in Victoria, B.C.
Watch the interview in the video above.
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