Singer Jill Sobule, best known for her 1995 hit “I Kissed a Girl,” died on the 1st of May in a house fire in Minnesota, her publicist confirmed to NBC News. She was 66.
The blaze occurred in Woodbury, which is located roughly 15 miles outside of Minneapolis.
Sobule's 1990 debut album, "Things Here Are Different," spawned the single "Too Cool to Fall in Love," which reached No. 17 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
Her biggest mainstream success arrived five years later with "I Kissed a Girl," which reached the top 20 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart (now known as the Alternative Airplay chart), the first song with openly queer themes to achieve this. The song had a music video featuring Fabio. Sobule's "I Kissed a Girl" was a completely different song from Katy Perry's hit song of the same name from 2008.
Sobule once made some sarcastic remarks about Perry's song, which some of Perry's fans took seriously and subsequently criticised Sobule.
“I may be a touch cynical about the business, but I have never really been angry or had ill feelings towards Katy herself,” Sobule wrote in response to the backlash in a post for The Huffington Post in 2009. “I was actually in a small way happy to not be the ‘Kissed a Girl’ girl anymore. That said, I hope her and her fans (god knows I don’t want to piss them off anymore) are okay with the title of my brand new song, “ I Kissed a Girl ...First.’ Wink.”
Sobule’s song “Supermodel” also appeared on the soundtrack for Alicia Silverstone’s hit 1995 movie, “Clueless.”
Recently, Sobule, who was also an early advocate of crowdfunding, created “F--- 7th Grade,” an autobiographical coming-of-age off-Broadway musical that was a New York Times Critic’s pick and debuted in 2022. The production earned a Drama Desk nomination for outstanding musical.
“Jill Sobule was a force of nature and human rights advocate whose music is woven into our culture. I was having so much fun working with her. I lost a client & a friend today. I hope her music, memory, & legacy continue to live on and inspire others,” her manager, John Porter, said in a statement.
Sobule was scheduled to perform on the 2nd of May in Denver at Swallow Hill. That venue will now host a gathering in her honour.
Sobule is survived by her brother and sister-in-law, James and Mary Ellen Sobule, as well as nephews, Ian Matthew and Robert, and Robert’s wife, Irina.