Maren Morris Reflects on Her Coming Out: ‘Community Has Been So Necessary & Life-Saving’

When Maren Morris publicly came out as bisexual in June 2024, fans and fellow artists alike shared their messages of congratulations for the singer-songwriter. Nearly a year later, Morris says those affirmations had a more profound impact than one might think.

In a new interview with The Zoe Report, Morris opened up about coming out, saying that she wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to speak publicly about her sexuality until last year. “I’ve always known that I am attracted to men and women. I think because I’ve been in straight relationships the last 15 years of my life, which has been consumed by my music career and living in Nashville, I never felt brave enough to talk about it,” she explained.

Her decision to come out, she said, was ultimately based on her desire to foster community — something she said she was in desperate need of after going through a publicly scrutinized divorce. “I wanted to be able to connect with my fans and my queer community,” she said. “Especially in a time where you’re in this free-for-all post-divorce reckoning, community has been so necessary for me and life-saving. Being honest and being vulnerable is the only way that you find community.”

This isn’t the first time Morris has opened up about her coming out. In a 2024 interview with Billboard, the singer described her surprise at seeing the news of her coming out garner coverage. “I think it was one of those things where I thought, ‘Does this really require an Instagram post?’ It didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, this is going to be some big f–king bombshell,'” she said at the time.

Elsewhere in her Zoe Report interview, Morris also looked back on her decision to leave the country industry, explaining again that her decision to take a step back had less to do with the genre of music itself and more about the institution in Nashville. “Country music is not a classroom that you just leave. It’s a family. It’s a sound. It’s a feeling. It’s an emotion,” she said. “It was about ‘Do I want to put my life’s work in the hands of some of these gatekeepers of mainstream country music?'”

The singer is currently promoting her forthcoming new album, Dreamsicle, due out on Friday (May 9). Described as a record navigating “the aftermath of loosening my grip on my personal and professional life,” Morris said in a statement in April that her new album is all about “finding the joy in knowing that at my core, I’m still who I am — and that’s pretty f—ing great.”