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performing alongside their dad’s blues
band in local shows. But being closeted
was painful. “It was so lonely and isolat-
ing,” T.J. says. A first heartbreak in his
early 20s crushed him all the more be-
cause he felt like he couldn’t tell anyone.
After moving to Nashville, T.J. and
John signed a publishing deal and, even-
tually, a record deal. It was around that
time, when he was in his mid-20s, that
T.J. first told his brother that he is gay.
“He was very candid, and I was emo-
tional, because my brother was finally
able to be honest with me about who he
was,” John remembers.
As Brothers Osborne began to grow
more popular, they made gestures to-
ward inclusion, starting with the video
for “Stay a Little Longer,” which fea-
tures gay and interracial couples. For
want to believe the answer is yes. T.J.’s
reasons for doing this now, he says, have
nothing to do with wanting to be loved
or hated. “I just want to move on,” he
says again, and it’s here that I crack.
Because what I want to tell T.J. is that
there is nothing to move on from, be-
cause that’s not how this works. I want to
tell him that I believe his gayness is not
something to be tolerated or accepted
but something to be celebrated, that he
spent all those years of life alone and
confused so he could transcend that pain
and use his voice here. And this moment
of genuine bravery he’s about to have,
of owning who you are in a place where
some people would prefer you don’t
exist—isn’t that something to embrace,
instead of something to endure?
“Don’t get me wrong,” T.J. says.
“When I say I want to put it behind me,
I want to put the coming-out behind
me. Because ultimately
i t ’s a very small detail
about me.”
But what if it’s not a
small detail? I ask. What
if it’s the most important
thing about you?
T.J. nods. “There are
times when I think I’ve
marginalized this part of
me so that I feel better
about it,” he says. “And I
realize that it is a big part
of who I am: the way I
think, the way I act, the way I perform.
God, think of all the times that we talk
about love, and write about love. It’s the
biggest thing we ever get to feel.” He
sighs. “You know, ‘Stand for something,
or you’ll fall for anything’?” he says.
“That sounds like something someone
in country would say. But if you stand
for something and it’s not what they
stand for, then they hate it.”
It’s almost dark by the time we get
back to his house, north of Nashville
on the banks of the Cumberland River,
and it’s a sticky evening, so warm it al-
most feels like summer. Along the river
through the darkness, I can see where
herons have built their nests in the tree-
tops. Standing outside, I ask T.J., for the
10th time that day, how he’s feeling.
He hugs his arms around himself.
“Good, man,” he says. “I’m feeling good.”
I believe him. □
the most part, the response was over-
whelmingly positive. “And then,” T.J.
says, “there were people who were like,
‘Faggot lovers!’ ”
Coming to grips with his own need
for greater honesty was an unexpected
by-product of a year in lockdown. “I
spent so much time this year around
my friends and family, being myself,”
T.J. says. It made him realize the perfect
moment to come out would never ar-
rive; he had to create it for himself.
“I want to get to the height of my career
being completely who I am,” he says.
As they continue making the same
sort of music they’ve always made,
there’s also a chance it will widen the
field for new fans. “Others will now
feel invited to the country- music party
for the first time,” says T.J.’s close
friend Kacey Musgraves, the singer-
songwriter. “Country music deserves
a future even more honest
than its past.”
When ellen DeGeneres
came out on the cover of
this magazine in 1997, it
was shocking to many.
Now, the tides have turned
toward quieter declara-
tions of identity, particu-
larly as young people
embrace more fluid
expressions of sexuality
and gender.
In pop, it’s become more advanta-
geous to be perceived as a provocateur.
That isn’t the case in country, which re-
mains a risk-averse business that runs
on the established machinery of radio
and touring, and trades on more tra-
ditional tropes in its lyrics and sound-
scapes. It’s starting to change: Black
artists are more visible in country than
they were a decade ago, and much of
country radio now sounds like pop and
hip-hop, just with a little twang. But the
homogeneity of the artists in the genre
as a whole is still striking—as if coun-
try’s gatekeepers are afraid that keep-
ing pace with the broader culture would
alienate the fraction of its consumers
who maintain bigoted worldviews.
Will conservative radio program-
mers and rural concert goers be as eager
to play and tailgate a gay artist, even
one they already know? Both brothers
‘I don’t think I’m
going to get run
off the stage
in Chicago.
But in a rural
town playing
a county fair?
I’m curious how
this will go.’
T. J. OSBORNE
RICK OSENTOSKI—AP
