Beth Ditto

Ditto grew up in a poor family in Arkansas in the southern United States, with her mother, various stepfathers, and six siblings – two older brothers, an older sister, two younger brothers and a younger sister. She was raised Southern Baptist and Pentecostal. At age 13, she moved out of her mother\'s house and went to live with her aunt. She moved to Olympia, Washington in 1999; then to Portland, Oregon in 2003, where she lives as of 2014. At 18, she discovered bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Raincoats and Siouxsie and the Banshees.\n', ' She fronted the band Gossip from its formation in 1999 until its dissolution in 2016. In addition, she has been involved in other musical projects. In 2008, she contributed vocals to the Crisis charity single "Consequences", a collaboration between various artists. In 2010, she sang on Simian Mobile Disco\'s track "Cruel Intentions" for their album of collaborations Temporary Pleasure. In 2011, she released her own 4-track Beth Ditto EP, produced by James Ford and Jas Shaw of Simian Mobile Disco, on the re-launched Deconstruction Records. She sang on Blondie\'s "A Rose by Any Name" from their 2013 album Ghosts of Download. Harrod Horatia, writing in The Telegraph, has said, "Where the stripped-down three-piece Gossip play propulsive, garage band blues, Ditto\'s own stuff is melancholic, soulful dance music, inspired by \'Eighties disco soul jams\' that she loves, and the up-tempo pop-R&B of I Wanna Dance With Somebody-era Whitney Houston."\n', ' Ditto, who is openly lesbian, is well known for her outspoken support of both lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), and feminist causes. She has been an advocate for large women being body-positive and has been regularly photographed as an editorial model. She is known for her stage dances and her unique and revealing image. She classes herself as a punk, and thus neither uses deodorant nor shaves under her armpits, having once remarked, "I think punks usually smell." She has cited Cyndi Lauper and Boy George as overall influences and Grace Jones and Peggy Moffitt as her beauty icons. She also stated: "Artists I love, like Siouxsie Sioux and Patti Smith, have such radically different ways of embodying femininity, but they\'re both amazing punk women. The true heart of feminism isn\'t about meeting other people\'s expectations around your body or your gender." She considers her favorite song to be "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" by X-Ray Spex.\n', '