On Their Secret Marriage & How The Fell In Love

Wendy in Lisa finally revealed that they were secretly married for 20 years! They’ve known each other since they were 2 years old and were crazy in love with each other by the age of 17.

Wendy: We were married and I was her biggest fan. Everything that she played broke my heart and still does and I wanna own it and covet it and make it mine.
Lisa: [Laughs at that] Yeah, we’re chained together. We’re shackled. No, I love Wendy. We’ve known each other our entire lives practically. Once she was finally hired into Prince’s band, it was like a dream for me. I had fallen in love with Wendy, my childhood friend, and suddenly we were looking at each other differently, but I had to leave on the road all the time. It was always just torture. Finally Prince met Wendy and there was some trouble with the other guitar player [Dez Dickerson], and providence moved in such a way that Wendy ended up on the road with us.

Prince’s Influence On Their Relationship

Wendy: I think Prince saw us as the couple that we were and used that relationship to add more mystery to him. And I think Lisa and I were willing to go there because at that time we felt mysterious. 

Wendy and Lisa say Prince didn’t necessarily want to hide their lesbian relationship, he just wanted to guide them, make it a part of the band’s persona and protect it:

Lisa: I’ll give you an example. We had a photo shoot for the “Purple Rain” poster. We were all in our different positions and he at one point walked over to me and Wendy and lifted my arm up and put my hand around Wendy’s waist and said “There.” And that is the poster. That’s how precise he was about how he wanted the image of the band to be. He wanted it to be way more obvious. We weren’t just the girls in the band. … We were the gay girls in the band. It was very calculated.
Wendy: And how did it make us feel? I felt slightly protected by it, which is really ironic. There was so much mystery around him and he never had to answer to anybody or anything and I was so young and dumb that I thought I could adopt that philosophy.

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Why They Didn’t Want To Come Out Back Then

Wendy: We’ve never done a “Let’s come out” interview. We’ve never been in the closet, but…I didn’t want to be a lesbian musician. I felt really uncomfortable with that role. I was already fighting, being a guitar player in a man’s world and to have that on top of it — Lisa and I were so very married at the time, it just didn’t seem like something I could handle.

The Whispers About Their Sexuality In The Industry

Lisa: With Prince and the Revolution, I think that it was just taken for granted that we were supposed to be the gay reps in the band. [Laughs] The blacks, the whites, the gays. And people would say, “Gee, do you think this lesbian thing is going to work for them?” [Everyone laughs]

On whether or not the record label staff suspected they were lesbians
Lisa:…After we would leave the record company offices, I remember one of our managers mentioning that the art department people would comment on the way Wendy and I would talk to each other. Like I would say, “Yes, dear,” and they would be all like whisper-whisper after we would leave the room. “They’re gay, aren’t they? They’re like an old married couple.” At that point, we had already been a couple for 10 years. It was very normal for us and very precious.

Are They Still Together?

Lisa: No, we’re not together. We were together for many, many years. We made it about 20 years together and now we are not together, but we are still together. I mean, we still share what we … we like to think we can still share the best of ourselves with each other, so, you know, she’ll always be just the most important person.

Wow…that “Computer Blue” excerpt Wendy and Lisa did on Prince and The Revolution’s album makes so much more sense now.

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