Beartooth Frontman Caleb Shomo And His Wife Divorce After He Comes Out As Gay
Metalcore’s biggest coming-out story of the year now has a bittersweet postscript. Caleb Shomo, frontman of American rock band Beartooth, and his wife Fleur have filed to end their marriage of almost 14 years, two months after he told fans he is “a proudly gay man”.
The pair, who married in 2012 and have no children, filed jointly in Los Angeles Superior Court on 13 July.
Shomo, 33, came out in an Instagram statement on 23 May. “There’s been a lot of speculation surrounding my personal life as of late and I feel compelled to set the record straight before it affects those I love any further,” he wrote. “I am a proudly gay man.”
He admitted he “spent a decade burying feelings with alcohol” and said getting sober put him on a direct path to reconciling with his sexuality.
The speculation had been building since February, when the video for Beartooth’s single Free showed Shomo in a more androgynous look. The backlash included homophobic abuse online, and he deleted his Instagram for two months.
Fleur responded with remarkable grace. “Our nearly 14yrs of marriage was wonderful and full of so much fun, adventure and love,” she wrote. “Our story was a good one. And now it’s done.” She asked fans to keep supporting her ex.
Who Is Caleb Shomo?
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the CV might. Raised in Westerville, Ohio, Shomo joined metalcore outfit Attack Attack! at 15 as keyboardist before stepping up to lead vocals.
For the uninformed, metalcore mixes the heaviness of metal with the speed and shouted vocals of hardcore punk. Screamed verses usually crash into big melodic choruses you can sing along to, which is exactly the formula Shomo built his career on.
The band’s 2012 album This Means War reached number 11 on the Billboard 200, but he quit that same year while battling depression.
He founded Beartooth in 2012 as basically a one-man project. Shomo writes, performs and produces nearly everything on the records himself, then tours with a live band. Five albums followed, from 2014’s Disgusting through to 2023’s The Surface, and a sixth, Pure Ecstasy, arrives 28 August through Fearless Records ahead of a European and UK tour.
His visibility matters in a scene with few openly gay frontmen. As Shomo put it in a June interview, “We have Rob Halford, and that was in the ’90s” The Judas Priest legend came out in 1998.
Shomo’s advice for anyone in the same spot? “Give yourself grace. Give yourself patience. Be honest with yourself.”
