Meshell Ndegeocello On Coming Out

The musician Meshell Ndegeocello actually doesn't have a coming out story: she has always been openly queer. But Meshell hasn't always been happy with being famous for being queer. "I feel like my sexuality preceded my music for a long time," she told After Ellen. "It was used as a marketing tool in the beginning, pretty blatantly, and I didn't really get it at the time. I was just out. I didn't realize it was a selling point and it took a lot of years to get any sense of privacy back into my life, where people didn't feel entitled to talk to me about who I was having sex with, as if it weren't a personal question." Now she urges young gays to "be honest, but protect yourself and your family. It's a better, safer, different moment, but it's hard to get things back once you give away too much." Good advice for us all.  [After Ellen] Image via Getty