Key Takeaways
- Chaka Khan rejected assumptions that she is straight, saying she keeps her sexuality private and asking, “How do you know what the f*ck I am?”
- The singer affirmed her support for everyone regardless of whom they sleep with, reflecting her decades-long connection to LGBTQ+ audiences through songs like “I’m Every Woman” and “Ain’t Nobody.”
- Khan also pushed back on speculation that she slept with Prince, emphasizing their deep friendship and creative partnership, which included “I Feel for You” and his support during her struggles with drugs and the music industry.
Chaka Khan has a question for anyone who has assumed she's straight: How exactly would they know?
The 73-year-old music icon flipped the script during a new interview with The Observer after the publication described her as a “straight icon for queer visibility.” Khan immediately zeroed in on one word.
“A straight icon? What’s the straight part?” she asked. “What do you mean, straight in what way?”
When the interviewer clarified that they meant heterosexual, Khan wasn't having it.
“Am I? How do you know what the f*ck I am?” she responded. “I don’t ever share that part of my life. That’s nobody’s business but mine.”
Khan stopped short of defining her sexuality herself, and that was precisely her point: she doesn't discuss that part of her life publicly. Once the interviewer withdrew the assumption, Khan made her position on sexuality and the LGBTQ+ community considerably clearer.
“I am for everybody,” she said. “I don’t care what you sleep with at night. If your heart is in the right place, that’s all I care about.”
The question didn't come out of nowhere. Khan's music has been embraced by LGBTQ+ audiences for decades, with “I’m Every Woman” becoming a staple of drag and ballroom culture and “Ain’t Nobody” maintaining its grip on dance floors more than 40 years after its release.
While curating London's Meltdown festival in 2024, Khan also programmed Adonis Afters, a queer rave, and put out a call for non-binary choir members.
But if there's one thing Khan made clear throughout the interview, it's that being open about her worldview doesn't mean surrendering her privacy.
Prince came up, and so did a question Khan apparently knows all too well: whether she and her longtime friend and collaborator ever slept together.
“Oh God, you’re not going to ask me if I’ve slept with Prince, are you?” Khan said.
Asked whether she hears that question often, Khan answered, “Hell yeah I do! It’s sad that they just assume I’m either a whore or a singer. Make up your mind! What do you want me to be?”
The speculation is particularly reductive considering just how much history the two actually shared. Prince was a Chaka Khan fan before becoming a superstar himself, and their friendship eventually became a creative partnership.
Khan's 1984 recording of his “I Feel for You” sold more than a million copies and earned Grammys for both artists. They later collaborated on her 1998 album Come 2 My House.
Their relationship ran much deeper than music. Khan credits Prince with intervening when she was struggling with drugs and becoming disillusioned with the industry.
“I was falling out of love with music,” she recalled. “I was ready to throw in the towel, and then Prince came along.”
That history also explains Khan's startling recent response when The Joy of Everything asked for a fond Prince memory. “He’s dead,” she replied before eventually saying what she missed most was simply “him.”
