The Truth About Pink

Christina Aguilera, Mýa, Pink, and Lil’ Kim at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002

Pink still hopes for a time when sexual orientation is irrelevant to the media, when people stop caring whether a woman is bisexual and start talking about whether a woman’s a CEO. But she admits that visibility, especially for LGBT youth, is critical. “I think it’s totally important. I don’t think every celebrity needs to have [a cause], I just think it’s great when they do.” Pink has supported the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, and YouthAIDS, among many other LGBT and non-LGBT charitable organizations.

She says she’s gotten as much from her fans as she’s given. When fans tell her they’ve experienced the same feelings she did, she’s often stunned. “I’m like, Really? You went through the exact same thing I went through? I’ve become less lonely, and through it, they’ve become less lonely, and I think it’s absolutely important that we’re all sharing our experiences, because in [many places] it’s hard to be gay. In a lot of places it’s hard to be black, and in a lot of places it’s hard to be female. I’m in California now, it’s hard to be Mexican.”

But living her life as a success story is vital to Pink: “It’s important for people to be visible, living their life and living it well so that kids can say, ‘I can do that. I look like that, I feel like that. I want to do that.’ ”

The rebel says she especially loves when someone broaches “an even more taboo subject” like depression. “Do I love it when someone’s depressed? No. But I love when they talk about it.”

The singer’s new album certainly does talk about it. “Try,” an ’80s-influenced soft rock number, is self-help in harmony, a depression primer where Pink urges listeners to get out of bed, to keep going, to “get up and try.” Her most hauntingly beautiful song, “The Great Escape” (written with Dan Wilson), could be a national hymn to a culture in which youth suicide and bullying are epidemic. In it she sings,

“I can understand how when the edges are rough / And they cut you like tiny slivers of glass / And you feel too much and you don’t know how long you’re gonna last / Everyone you know is trying to smooth it over / Find a way to make the hurt go away… / But I won’t let you make the great escape / I’m never gonna watch you checking out of this place / I’m not gonna lose you because the passion and the pain are gonna keep you alive some day.”