“Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken,” a docuseries focusing on bonds the singer forms with incarcerated women over addiction issues that have affected their lives, will hit Paramount+ later this year, the network announced Thursday.
The two-part series will follow Etheridge as she writes a new song inspired by her communication with five women locked up at a prison in her Kansas hometown, the Topeka Correctional Facility. The anthem she writes for them is inspired by letters coming from the prisoners discussing their issues with substance abuse, among the other things that brought them there — a topic that Etheridge is fully engaged on, having lost her son to opioids in a headline-making tragedy four years ago.
“I’m excited for audiences to join me on this powerful journey and hear these remarkable stories filled with pain and struggle but also hope and healing,” Etheridge said in a statement. “I hope that this docuseries shows viewers the challenges that women face in our prison system while also serving as a resource to those who currently are struggling.”
Paramount+’s description says the the doc will deal with “female incarceration, redemption, substance abuse, generational trauma, grief and healing,” further noting that the Grammy-winning singer forges a bond with the five prisoners through music “as an act of empathy, understanding and hope.”
Brian Morrow and Amy Scott are directing “Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken,” with Jonathan Lynch of Shark Pig Studios serving as producer. Among the executive producers include Kathy Rivkin Daum and William Kennedy for BMG Films, Deb Klein for Primary Wave Music, and Bruce Gillmer and Michael Maniaci for MTV Entertainment Studios, along with Etheridge.
Etheridge will put in a Paramount+ appearance this weekend as an awards presenter. She is scheduled for the 2024 “CMT Music Awards” telecast, which will air live Sunday night on CBS and be livestreamed for subscribers to the Paramount+ With Showtime plan (with on-demand Paramount+ viewing starting the following day).
Apart from the docuseries, Etheridge has a busy year in store on the road, with three different tours already announced. A spring run of shows, also titled “Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken,” kicked off March 14 and wraps up April 20; in the L.A. area, it includes a concert in Thousand Oaks this Friday. Then she has two co-headlining tours scheduled for the summer and fall of 2024, one with Indigo Girls and one with Jewel. The co-billed shows with Indigo Girls are set for Aug. 11-25. The shows with Jewel, meanwhile, run on either side of that; the Etheridge/Jewel concerts begin July 11 and go through Oct. 5, including an L.A.-area stop at Inglewood’s YouTube Theater on July 26.
Etheridge was also highly visible in 2023, with a memoir, “Talking to My Angels,” published in September, and a three-month Broadway engagement of“My Window”at Circle in the Square Theatre that also tooi place in the fall.
