NORTH HALSTED – Grab your skinny jeans and Uggs because the early 2000s are back with vengeance. “Queer” is a slur again and nature is healing! This year we Chicagoans are ringing in Pride Month with an unexpected icon to the gay community: Jesse McCartney. Yes, that Jesse McCartney. No, he hasn’t come out. He’s just headlining the Pride Fest. In the year of our lord 2025.
This year’s Pride Fest theme is “United in Pride,” and although that sounds like a rallying cry from the alt-right, McCartney seems to have really taken it to heart. We spoke to event organizer Samantha Juno, 45, for comment. “Sure, he’s not the first person you might think of when you think of a potential performer for Pride Fest, but with diversity and inclusion budgets being slashed, he was our best option,” Juno explained to our reporters.
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“We wanted to appeal to our Gen-Z community’s desire for the comfort of nostalgia. Maybe they listened to ‘Beautiful Soul’ on their way to school, while being verbally accosted by their homophobic classmates. Jesse was with them during their darkest moments, and now he can be there while they do poppers and molly at 10 in the morning.” Juno elaborated, sadly waving a tattered pride flag.
Perhaps gay propaganda film Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) finally turned his head, with the age-gap Achillean polycule convincing him to set aside his straight ways. Or maybe he’s just learned that souls can be beautiful no matter what gender they were assigned at birth. Realistically, maybe the pay-check from our friends on Halsted was just too good to turn down.
Our team spoke to attendees of last year’s Pride Fest to gauge how they were feeling about the choice in headliner. Gray Paulson, 32, scoffed, “out of all the performers, he was the best option? The gayest thing he’s done is Kingdom Hearts.”
