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Diana Ross “didn’t understand” the gay 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 make the connection between the song and gay people coming out of the closet.

Ross apparently loved the lyrics, Rodgers said, “[but] she didn’t grasp 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 idea “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 realize why Rodgers wanted to ruin her career.

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

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

Most of us can agree 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 support of the two songwriters, and the resultant album - 1980's 'Diana' - proved one of her biggest hits.

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

Rodgers revealed that he first got the idea for the tune 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 Post. “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

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Diana Ross didn’t realize she was making a lgbtq+ anthem when she recorded “I’m Coming Out” in 1979, says the dude 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 compose the track after seeing Diana Ross impersonators in the bathroom of a Manhattan nightclub.

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

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

He convinced Ross that it would become the song 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 successful album.