September 28, 2013 | Arts / Entertainment

Can a country music star come out of the closet?

Actor Chris Carmack, who plays closeted country singer Will Lexington in the TV drama Nashville, thinks it would be a bad idea for any male country music star to come out as gay.

He was asked if  “it's possible to be openly gay and a successful country singer?”

His answer: “People I've spoken to say that at a certain level it’d be career suicide for somebody to come out of the closet. That's a terrible kind of fame. I don't think executives would give [my character] Will the time of day. That's a damn shame, but in country music there's a stigma that's insurmountable."

Country music star Chely Wright said that her announcement that she was a lesbian turned off many fans.

"From the day that I officially came out, on May 4, 2010, many people that had been fans aren’t anymore," she said. "My mother did not take it well at all and we don’t speak, and that was a cost.

"Many people are very misinformed about people like me. I am a Christian. I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs. People had it in their head that there is no one gay in country music."