Kat Graham explains why she chose GLAAD as a partner for her new album, Long Hot Summer
Prepare to expand your Pride playlist with some new music.
Kat Graham (aka Toro Gato), an actress and artist, collaborated with the LGBTQ+ media organization GLAAD on her new album, Long Hot Summer, which she discussed on E! News’ Daily Pop.
She told hosts Loni Love and Jai Rodriguez, “It’s such a wonderful record about emancipation.” For years, I’ve wanted to do something for Pride. I wanted to contribute to GLAAD in some way. I’ve been a member of the council since around 2009. “
In honor of Pride, Graham is donating the album’s revenues to GLAAD, which fights defamation of LGBTQ+ people in entertainment and the media.
When I hear the phrase ally, I think to myself, ‘I’m not an ally,’ as in, ‘This is our community.’ “It impacts all of us if it affects just one person,” she remarked. “I wanted this record to be fun and dance and party and uplifting and all about sexual freedom and loving who you are and all of those things, but it had to have a reason,” she says.
Graham’s entertainment career is also shown on the album. She started out singing in small clubs and venues before getting her big break as Bonnie Bennett on The Vampire Diaries.
She told Daily Pop, “I booked this show, and my music definitely slowed down a bit.” “After a couple of good hits, I really wanted to be a part of this era.”
She is celebrating love in her own life, as she recently got engaged to boyfriend Darren Genet in April, much as she is doing with her new music.
Graham remembered how she and her fiancé met. “He was my director,” she said. “After several years of working together, I’m like, ‘I guess I’m in love with you.’
She revealed the adorable thing she’s managed to cross off her wedding preparation checklist, despite the fact that she hasn’t set a wedding date.
“The only thing I have for my small pinscher, Izzy, is a very, very tiny wedding dress,” she laughed. “All right, that’s it. But aside from that, no, no, I’m sorry, I don’t have anything. “
Is Toro Gato, her artistic alter ego, going to be present on her special day? “It’s possible,” she said. “I haven’t thought out the invitations yet, but I’m sure I will.”