Carole Pope (born August 6, 1950 in Manchester, England) is a Canadian rock singer, whose provocative blend of hard-edged new wave rock with explicit homoerotic and BDSM-themed lyrics made her one of the first openly lesbian pop stars in the world. Pope was raised in Scarborough, Ontario, where she met her longtime musical partner, Kevan Staples at an audition for another band. In 1968, they began performing together as a duo in Yorkville, which was Toronto's live music and arts district at the time. In 1970 they adopted the name O, changing it to The Bullwhip Brothers the following year.
In 1975, they added several other musicians to the lineup, and changed the band name to Rough Trade. Pope often performed in leather pants and bondage attire, and was for an extended time romantically involved (although privately) with Dusty Springfield and more briefly with Bob Ezrin and Andrea Martin.
Pope won the 1981 Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist, and subsequently won the Juno Award for Best Female vocalist in 1982 and 1983.
Rough Trade broke up in 1988, and three years later Pope moved to Los Angeles to pursue film and television soundtrack work. Although she has recorded and toured to promote several solo albums, and has played several reunion shows with Rough Trade, her solo career has been lower-profile than her time with the band.
She also did a stint in the Toronto production of The Vagina Monologues in 2001. The same year, she published an autobiography, Anti-Diva.
