Rockstar Came Out as Gay to His Wife of 14 Years. Here's How It Went.

Caleb Shomo, the frontman of rock band Beartooth, came out as gay in a social media post in May. Now he's talking about the conversation that led there — the one in the shower, the one with his wife, the one he'd been putting off for years.

Shomo, 33, sat down on the Disrespectfully podcast to reflect on the process after coming out publicly. He had been married to Fleur Shomo since 2012 — fourteen years.

He described the moment in the shower when he finally stopped talking himself out of it.

"I was in the shower, trying to talk myself into saying something I had been many times. Thankfully, I kind of smacked myself in the face and said, 'It's time,'" he said. "And I said something to my then-wife about how I feel about men, and how I've never really allowed myself to explore this, but I have to tell you, I can't not. And it was just a road from there."

He said he was terrified. He said he couldn't stop crying. He said he struggles to verbalize things on a good day and this was not a good day.

"I was just bawling my eyes out, trying so hard to verbalize," he said. "I'm a verbal processor, and this is obviously such an intense thing, and I'm feeling so nervous and so scared in this situation that it was really, really difficult to verbalize, and I didn't verbalize it very well. I tried my best."

What he eventually managed to say was that "the way that I feel about girls, I feel about guys" — that there was "something there that I've been running from" and that he didn't want to run anymore.

What Came After

Once it was out, something shifted. "Everything starts to make sense," he said, "and then I was able to stop hating myself so much, at least in some ways, and start to unpack everything."

Shomo came out publicly on Instagram on May 23, writing that he is "a proudly gay man" and that this was "something I've been unpacking and reckoning with in my life for quite some time now."

His wife Fleur responded with her own statement — one that was honest about the pain while holding onto the love at the same time.

"Our nearly 14 years of marriage was wonderful and full of so much fun, adventure and love," she wrote. "Nobody will know anything about our marriage like we do. And no one can ever truly know what depths of love exist between two people unless they are those people. I already miss it and my husband more than anything. Our story was a good one. And now it's done."

She added that despite the "very disorienting and hurtful" period for both of them, she "will always want to love, protect and support Caleb."

The Reaction and What's Next

Shomo said the public response has been mixed. "Some people are here for it, some people aren't," he said simply.

Beartooth has a new album coming — Pure Ecstasy drops in August. Shomo founded the band in 2012 and has led it through five studio albums, building a devoted fanbase in the rock world. Whatever comes next in his personal life, the music is still coming.

Fourteen years of marriage. One conversation in a shower. A lot of years of running from something, and then deciding to stop.

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