In a new interview with Louder Sound, Heart’s Nancy Wilson addressed a decades old rumor about her and her sister Ann Wilson’s sexuality, and how it affected them both personally and professionally.
The rumor began shortly after the release of Heart’s 1976 album “Dreamboat Annie,” and, according to Nancy, it was started by the band’s record label, Mushroom Records.
In promotion of “Dreamboat Annie,” Mushroom took out a full-page ad in Rolling Stone that was purposely made to look like the front page of a tabloid. The headline read: “Exclusive – The Heartbreaking Story! Regional Hit Mushrooms Into Million Seller.” While Ann and Nancy didn’t have any issues with the headline itself, the ad featured a bare-shouldered, back to back photo of the sisters with the caption: “Heart’s Wilson Sisters Confess: ‘It Was Only Our First Time!’”.
“The insinuation was really sexual, that we were lesbians,” Nancy told Louder Sound. “And of course we were not. So we were really offended.”
As for who was responsible, Nancy thinks it was “one of the publicity people around the record company [who] probably came up with it.”
When they complained to Shelly Siegel, Mushroom Records’ vice-president and creative director, he dismissed their concerns. “Don’t worry about it. Ink is ink!” Nancy recalled him saying.
This incident and Heart’s fallout with Mushroom records, however, did result in them writing one of their biggest hits.
“At a party for ‘Dreamboat Annie’, this guy comes up to Ann and says: ‘How’s your lover, Annie?’ She goes: ‘Well Mike Fisher’s right over there. He’s fine.’ And he goes: ‘No, I mean your sister!’ Ann turned on her boot heel and huffed out of the room, then wrote the words for ‘Barracuda’ up in her hotel room,” Nancy remembered.
