“Darling, I loved your performance. I love your new songs.”
Brooke Eden received those praises from an older gentleman after his recent performance in Los Angeles. Among the crowds mostly in their 20s and 30s, there was this guy who Eden, 36, described as a “70-year-old cowboy.” [donning a] A cowboy rises from head to toe – hat, wrangler, nice starch western shirt, boots. ”
“Your hat doesn’t have a pin,” adds the cowboy, removing the pin from his hat and fastening it to Eden’s hat with the explanation, “I’ve won this at the Gay Rodeo since 1988.”
Eden proudly put on his hat on the zoom camera and showed off his small pin. “I will cherish this forever,” she says.
By chance, the older gay cowboy was one of many who promoted “Giddy Up” and “Rainbow Rodeo,” which lesbian country starlets promoted their charming and festive new singles on a recent tour. Touring what she calls “different honky tonks across the United States,” each show featured local line dancers who were taught the moves in advance for “Giddy Up.”
“Someone from the gay rodeo came to me after all the shows,” Eden says.
It marks the 50th anniversary of Capital Pride, not to mention 2025, and Eden and her team have been keeping an eye on the plans for WorldPride DC this year for the past few years. “We’ve been talking to the coordinator for a few years and thought, ‘How crazy it would be,’ but never get my hope that I’ll be booked for it. ”
Eden dismisses the idea that she deserves a prop for her patience. American Idolfrom South Florida in 2008 and 2011, I tried it twice, not once.
“Ask Morgan Warren, Mullen Morris. [and any] Number of country artists I tried American Idol It didn’t end in the show,” she says. But for me it is like the outlaw spirit within me, and we will not give up.
“I grew up in a Southern household where you work hard for your money and grind and stomp until you get to where you want to go,” she continues. “And my music career was a big example. When I was pushed away from the horse, there were many times when I probably just didn’t get back on my feet and should have gotten a 9-for-5 job somewhere. But that was never an option for me.”
She moved to Nashville and pulled a record deal before she went out. “Then I had to navigate the whole situation. [of] I’m trying to come out and dig out space for the whole community of people who want to come out and love not just myself, but also for myself, express their love for someone, and feel expressed in country music,” she says.
Eden met his future wife, Hilary Hoover in 2015. It was pretty “curve ball,” she says. “She actually worked for my record label and took me on a radio tour, especially since I was doing something brand new, which complicated everything. I’m out, I’m meeting. [with executives at] 165 country music radio stations meet Hillary on this nine-month tour of their lifetimes across the United States. For us both, we were very clear to each other’s people. ”
It will take another five years, two weeks before Osborne brothers TJ Osborne did the same in the beginning of 2021, after Eden is ready to finally make it official.
A few months after leaving, Trisha Yearwood called out to express her support, but more importantly, Eden joins her on the Grand Ole Opry stage and asks if she will celebrate her 2019 hit “She’s in Love with a Boy.” There was an amazing hitch. The two sing with the lyrics changed as a new strange duet, “She’s in love with a girl.”
“I was a little nervous, I’m not going to lie,” Eden says. “After we got off stage at Grand Ole Opry, Tricia and I were hugging us in the High Five and we got the response we had and it came out so well that the tomatoes couldn’t be thrown at us.”
By this point, Eden had already brooched the subject of her upcoming wedding, saying, “Are I going to be a flower girl? Am I going to be a bridesmaid? Can I preside? What can I do?” Yearwood not only hosted, but her husband, Garth Brooks, “stopped us down the aisle to make us feel our love.”
Eden says, “I still say it’s ‘picking me’ because it’s wild that I’ve always admired my life as an incredible musician and country artist. ”
Ultimately, it was singing alongside Yearwood at Grand Ole Opry that gave Eden the first true sense that she was herself and could become a country artist. “I don’t need to decide on two,” she says. “Maybe it’s okay that I’m both.”
Eden said, “Injecting queer joy into country music into country music has become a truly great mission for me, as country music is all about three chords and truths, and our truth is not told. Recently, her truth includes Hillary’s wife, who continues to serve as Eden’s tour manager, and the second mother of the duo’s six-month-old boy, Beckham.
Beckham joins his mother this year on the date of his chosen concert, but he will venture into DC with his grandparents for World Pride.
“This summer has been like the summer of my dreams so far,” says Eden. “When I started telling my truth and communicating my life loudly, I didn’t know what the show would look like. It was so cool to play and play county fairs. This summer I have so many different features. I’m very exciting.
“But I have to say that the thing that excites me the most is WorldPride,” she says. “Being part of something so enormously united in our country’s capital is like a dream next level.”
Brook Eden will perform at the World Pride Street Festival + concert on Sunday, June 8th at Capitol Stage, Third Street and Capitol Stage on Pennsylvania Avenue NW at around 4:45pm. The concert is open to the public for free. visit www.worldpridedc.org.
VIP experience tickets are available including front viewing, access to the expanded VIP section with a lounge, private toilet and a bar with free or discounted food and drinks. Visit us for pricing and availability www.tickets.capitalpride.org.
visit www.brookeden.com.
This article was originally featured in the 2025 WorldPride Guide, co-created by Capital Pride Alliance and Metro Weekly. To read the WorldPride Guide in full, click here.
Source: Metro Weekly – www.metroweekly.com
