Melissa Lou Etheridge (born May 29, 1961 in Leavenworth, Kansas) is an American rock musician.
Etheridge has produced eight albums since signing her first major recording contract in 1987. Three of them have gone multi-platinum: Melissa Etheridge (1988), Yes I Am (1993) and Your Little Secret (1996). Two others went platinum and another gold.
She has won the Grammy award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance twice in her career, for the song "Ain't It Heavy" in 1992 and " Come to My Window", in 1994.
She is a Bruce Springsteen fan, and she has covered his song "Thunder Road" during live shows.
Etheridge is also famous as a gay rights activist, having publicly come out as a lesbian during President Bill Clinton's first inauguration in January 1993. She had a long-term partnership with Julie Cypher, with whom she had two children via a sperm donor, David Crosby. However, in 2000, Cypher began to reconsider her sexuality, and on September 19, 2000, they announced they were separating. In 2001, Etheridge documented this and other experiences in her memoir The Truth Is... My Life in Love and Music. In it, she recounts that she was molested by her sister, Jennifer, over five years as a child, and mentions an alleged affair Cypher had with k.d. lang.
After splitting from Cypher she went on in 2003 to marry actress Tammy Lynn Michaels.
Though she is limited in acting experience, it has been announced that a sitcom is in production to star Etheridge as a lesbian living with her heterosexual male best friend (together raising a third person's child.) Critics have predicted that it will be "like Will & Grace except cancelled".