Beth Ditto Biography

Beth Ditto is an American singer-songwriter known as the lead vocalist of the indie-disco trio Gossip.

Early Life

Mary Beth Patterson was born in Searcy, Arkansas on February 19, 1981. Mary was raised as a Southern Baptist and Pentecostal in a large family. She has moved with her mother on and off until settling in Portland, Oregon in 2003.

Career Beginnings

At 18 years old she met guitarist Brace Paine and drummer Hannah Blilie and formed the band Gossip. As her fame grew, due to her strong personality, the group eventually disbanded. Their last single was Standing In the Way of Control from their third album and was a direct message to her country as a response to the ban on gay marriage.

Success

Beth Ditto became notorious due to her opposition to perfect beauty standards, thus redefining her own beauty and sexuality. Ditto was by NME “the coolest person in rock”. She posed nude for erotic magazines like Love. Her larger than life personality led her to open for fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier during his Spring Collection at the 2011 Paris Fashion Week. Before that, she already released her own plus size clothing line called Evans in 2009. The following year she launched a makeup collection with MAC Cosmetics. Next, Beth released her own book and collaborated musically with Calvin Johnson on Lightning Rod for Jesus, Simian Mobile Disco on Cruel Intentions and Jarvis Cocker for a duet Temptation. Ditto released her first solo self-titled EP and went on a campaign to ban the clothing “size zero”. She got together with Paul Weller and Graham Coxon in a supergroup called Crisis in order to raise money for the homeless, as part of a charity program.

Photo credit: MYKITA