Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien OBE, known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a significant singer of blue-eyed soul, pop, and dramatic ballads, with French chanson, country, and jazz also in her repertoire.
Who did Dusty Springfield have relationships with?
The singer was never reported to be in a heterosexual relationship, and this meant that the issue of her sexual orientation was raised frequently during her lifetime. From 1966 to the early 1970s, she lived in a domestic partnership with fellow singer Norma Tanega.
In 1970, she told the Evening Standard: “Many other people say I’m bent, and I’ve heard it so many times that I’ve almost learned to accept it. I know I’m perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don’t see why I shouldn’t.”
She was later in several romantic relationships with women in Canada and the United States, including an “off and on” domestic relationship with Faye Harris, an American photojournalist.
In 1983, she and her partner Teda Bracci exchanged vows at a wedding ceremony, which was not recognized under California law at the time. However, the pair had a “tempestuous” relationship leading to Bracci hitting Dusty in the mouth with a saucepan, requiring plastic surgery. The pair separated within two years.