Jill Sobule, the singer and songwriter whose hit “Supermodel” and gay anthem “I Kissed a Girl” were followed by three decades of touring, advocacy and a one-woman musical, died on Thursday morning in a house fire in Woodbury, Minn., according to her publicist. She was 66.
The Public Safety Department in Woodbury, a Minneapolis suburb, said that firefighters had responded at 5:30 a.m. to a house that was engulfed in flames. The homeowners said one person was possibly still inside. Firefighters found the body of a woman in her 60s inside the house, the department said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
Ms. Sobule was scheduled to perform songs from her one-woman musical, “F*ck7thGrade,” on Friday at the Swallow Hill Music venue in her hometown, Denver, according to her publicist. She was staying with friends in Minnesota while she rehearsed for the musical, the publicist said.
A free, informal gathering will be held in Ms. Sobule’s honor instead.
On her 1995 self-titled album, Ms. Sobule, who was bisexual, featured “I Kissed a Girl,” which tells the story of a woman kissing her female friend. The song came out when it was “dicey” to be a queer musician, Ms. Sobule recalled. But it broke into the mainstream, making its way onto the Billboard charts.
“Supermodel,” a rebellious rock song from the same album, was included on the soundtrack of the romantic comedy “Clueless” and further cemented Ms. Sobule’s popularity.
“People call me a one-hit wonder,” Ms. Sobule said in a 2022 interview with The New York Times. “And I say, ‘Wait a second, I’m a two-hit wonder!’”
