Getty Singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile (L), with British actress Catherine Shepherd.
Brandi Carlile will be performing tonight during the 54th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, in a collaboration with Dierks Bentley. As a singer-songwriter, fans are often curious about how her personal life influences her writing, especially when it comes to love songs and her marriage.
Carlile has been married to her wife Catherine Shepherd since 2012; the couple have two daughters together, Evangeline and Elijah. Shepherd is a British actress; according to IMDB, her major credits include Paddington and its sequel, and the TV series Peep Show, on which she played April from 2004 until 2015.
This past Valentine’s Day, Catherine snuck onto Brandi’s Instagram account to share a sweet message to her wife, writing “Dear Brandi, This is your wife taking over your Instagram account. It’s still Valentine’s Day on the west coast, so I wanted to tell you that you are without question the coolest misfit I have ever met. This is us looking like 12 year olds on our honeymoon. We took a road trip to Ocean Shores and had fish and chips and champagne in the back of our truck with our old dog while we watched the sunset on the beach. I am so incredibly proud of you and all the Grammy stuff but this is how I love you the most. It could only be you, love of my life. Catherine x.”
According to The Guardian, since the Defense of Marriage Act wasn’t abolished until 2015, the couple’s 2012 wedding was technically illegal. Carlile told The Guardian that she came out as a lesbian when she was 14, shortly after Ellen DeGeneres had done so; she revealed that the pastor at her high school refused to baptize her once she came out as gay, adding “That’s when they decided to make an example of me. I’d been on a lot of stages in my life, but that was an irreversibly damaging public humiliation.” Now, Carlile uses her personal experiences, including her sexuality and motherhood, as driving forces for her songwriting.
When talking to the Rolling Stone about her new album and what inspires her to write her music, she said “It’s about whatever puts that lump in my throat, because that lump in my throat is a song. And right now, the refugees put that lump in my throat. My little baby, the one on the way, my family and feeling like it’s under attack, because I’m gay and because I’m married to a woman that’s not a U.S. citizen: those things put a lump in my throat, and I’ve got to sort that out, or I’m going to get cancer. I’ve got to write those songs, because there’s really no other way to get rid of it.” Though she says it’s just a by-product of who she is, Carlile embraces her roles as a mom and a wife and a country music star and uses her platform to promote causes of which she is personally passionate, telling The Guardian “To not squander the opportunity I’ve been given is an evolution. If somebody believes I’m wrong, I want them to say it so we can engage. Big inclusive sentiments are a salve. They’re not appropriate.”