Michele Bettencourt- A Trans Story in Amplified Sound

By Alix Cohen

“Everybody loves a circus/Until they become the clown/Every weak cog has its purpose… until they been chased from town…” (“Everybody Loves a Circus”- Michele Bettencourt/Hendrik Helmer 2025)

For three decades, now 64 year-old Michele (né Anthony) Bettencourt helped power the rise of Silicon Valley, quietly making billions for tech giants while building a life that included two marriages and four children. Then came her boldest pivots yet: coming out as transgender in her mid 50s and stepping onto the stage as a rock singer-songwriter in California and New York City.
Today, Michele channels her dealmaker’s fire into searing protest songs—proof that reinvention can be the ultimate act of rebellion.

Anthony Bettencourt was the only child born to a sweet, ineffectual blue collar father and a hereditarily unstable mother whose own mother was institutionalized. “I was worried that I would inherit…”

At 7, he was caught trying on her mother’s bathing suit. “There was a lot of crying and screaming,” but no discussion. Oddly mom never told Anthony’s father. Michele didn’t come out to him until just before he passed in 2016. Dad’s response to being shown a photo of her in women’s apparel and wig was “You look kinda pretty.”

“My life’s a puzzle where a piece goes missing/I don’t mind losing cause /I’m never going to win/My ceiling is leaking and the rain won’t stop pissing/ I’m much too lonely to start looking for a friend.” (“Punching Bag” 2026 MB)

The Bettencourts cashed in their savings bonds to send Anthony to Santa Clara University. An aspiring novelist, he matriculated in English but was an admittedly terrible student. Living at home to save money limited campus activities. Literary rejections shredded confidence.

“I was attracted to women, but not sexually obsessed like my peers. When I was drawn to a man, I thought it was a passing phase.” He dropped out of school senior year.

Technical writing seemed a viable career because of proximity to Silicon Valley. That summer, his soon-to-be-father-in-law hired him to work a machine making coated disks for hard drives. It was a way in. Clearly an exceptional trainee, he was asked to write a safety manual, then, at 21, offered a full time job.

Anthony married Joan in 1982. Despite a difficult childhood, he wanted to be a parent. Triplets were born five years later. Becoming Michele has brought out nurturing that had been subjugated during corporate life during which her daughters referred to her as “airport dad.” Now she feels, there’s no difference between maternal and paternal.

A tenuously bifurcated life found the executive in Los Angeles at The Queen Mary, “a show bar of beautiful trans women where people would dress up and dance with other men.” When men opened doors or pulled out chairs, Michele reacted appreciatively.

After being given a professional make-over, it was suggested Anthony have photos taken for a cross-dressing, lifestyle magazine. The photographer thought she looked like a “Michele” with one l. She kept the name. “I’ve been taking hormones since 2017. I have breasts and hips. ‘No surgery…I was terrified. I dressed at night, not wanting to subject my awkwardness to people during the day. I had good features, 23 year-old skin, and a wig of big Texas hair. Nobody at home knew. There was no confidante or mentor.”

The first three months, Anthony closed $1.5 million as a sales rep and accepted a tech support job at $17,000 a year. He was good at it. A suit (from Goodwill) got him noticed. The young executive was pulled into client meetings and flown all over the country as a systems engineer. Three successive positions found him, At 27, earning $150,000 which would be $421,214 today.

Anthony traveled well, staying in first class hotels. Personnel were aware of checking in as Anthony and appearing as Michele at night. “I was polite, kind, and I tipped well. I just wanted to be who I am. When I was working I was confident, as Michele I was shy.”
Sitting in bars as Michele with a laptop, she was occasionally approached and went on dates.

“All that time/Running at such a pace/Remembering when you/Were in the lead/Wondering how/You lost the race…” (MB “Redemption”- “At the time I wasn’t certain whether I was writing about me or my mother.”)

“I understand men, she says. “I know what they like and what their triggers are, but I had to dumb myself down. Men don’t want women to be smarter or have more experience. I told them I worked in “marketing.” I don’t do that anymore.”“I’ve seen the ‘I’m uncomfortable’ look, the ‘I hate trans’ look, the ‘I’m gonna punch you’ look. About a dozen times in my life I’ve had men get nasty. ‘You’re a faggot’, ‘You’re not a woman.’ There’s nothing as crazy as an angry transgender woman. Once, I suck it up, twice I respond.”

Confronted with real bullies, she suggested meeting outside: “I’ll keep my heels on and give you one free punch, but you better kill me because I’ll beat the shit out of you. I’m angry and I’m fast. Then I’m gonna write a check for 50 grand and fuck up your life.” When hostilities faded, Michele sometimes bought the perpetrator a drink.

Style and sophistication were acquired by emulation. At first not concerned with fashion, she’d eventually be known at the New York boutiques of Chanel, Dior, and Alia. “I was polite and friendly because I wanted to go back.”

The couple divorced in 1991. Michele left her family and moved to New York. She kept her Silicon Valley job, lived well and created a life for herself. Still, no one knew about her double life. Two years later, in California, Anthony married Karin, also kept in the dark. A fourth daughter was born.

“I thought I could stop this. I didn’t know what it was. It felt very off and strange. I just didn’t get it. We loved each other. I thought this second marriage would be the trigger to stop it.” It wasn’t.

Missing music, she formed Zen Vendetta, a band for which she sang and played drums, an instrument not touched since high school. It was the kind of heads up, classic rock group stuck in the 80s. Songs were written collectively.

Twenty-three years passed. Between her father’s death, her mother’s suicide, and more fully addressing the dichotomy of her life, Michele grew apart from Karin. “I was an asshole. My mother used to tell me to ‘man up.’ I hated that. I decided what I needed to do was ‘adult up.”

She finally came out to her wives and daughters. The girls were angry and confused at her subterfuge, but not judgmental. The only
question they had was what to call her. “I told them they could call me MD, Michele, or dad. It’s an honor to be their father. They finally all said, ‘We get it, you’re different.’

“She’s not the runaway type/Never Counts my mistakes/I can’t fix what I break/ She’s not the runaway type” (“She’s Not the Runaway Type” 2025 MB)

Still a CEO, Michele flew back to New York, to think, this time staying three years. She bought an apartment (now occupied by a daughter), and found a transgender bar in which to hang out. There was liberal use of recreational drugs and alcohol. “I was full of emotion. Molly (Ectasy), cocaine, vodka and pot became my four food groups. New York was a fantasy life.”

In 2017, she found Dr. Eric, a psychiatrist who specialized in trans adjustment. “We went deep.” The two now speak by telephone. That same year she was outed by an activist investor. Michele suggested stepping down in order to avoid harming the business. “I was trying to be a good soldier.”

Having taken the company from $110m to $300m and the market cap from $760 to $1.6B, principals were reluctant to let her go. They suggested hiring a president while remaining CEO and Chair. At 57, she found someone suitable, offered her own position, and left the organization.

Music beckoned. Through a friend, she was introduced to Hendrik Helmer ostensibly to learn guitar. A collaboration was born. Michele produced and sang on a CD of her own songs called New Normal. It was an experiment, played by a hired band, relegated to being gifted to friends.

In 2019, she moved back to California and Karin. “With no idea how far I was going to transition, I made a decision that I should be with my family. It was a difficult time.” Executive Chairwoman jobs at two successive companies came quickly. Michele would occasionally show up in a dress. On the one hand, her gender evolution was more readily accepted, on the other, greed seemed omnipresent. She quit.

Currently only on the board of a Toronto company, Michele also became part owner of Licorice Pizza Record Pressing (LPs are apparently back), and is co-producing As You Are, a film about trans soldiers in the military.

Two events propelled her further into writing protest songs, the Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings and Trump’s deploying National Guard Troops to Los Angeles. The songs “Everybody Loves a Circus” and “Welcome to the Freak Show” were written in a rush of fury upon the events in L.A.

“Most everything I write centers on just a few themes,” she explains.
(1) the disappointment that our country could be so easily upended by tyrants where the purported checks and balances were nothing more that self-dealing disguised as parchment.”
In the song “Lone Gunman” from the New Normal Album, she wrote: “They gathered their worst/And laundered their sheets/Sharpened their knives/And fought in the streets/Dumbed down the courts/Fooled all of the fools/Set us back years/And changed all the rules…”

Her protest songs are resolute—less about taking to the barricades than about refusing to look away, being accountable. She uses plainspoken, literate lyrics to expose systems of power, gendered expectations, and the toll of injustice. Instead of proclaiming slogans, they provoke unease and thought. There’s no promise of easy solutions or catharsis.

(2) “Reflections on my transition” “Family’s more than blood some say/Love the best who you can find/Never thought I’d see the day/That I’d be left so far behind/So far behind…” (“How Close Will You Stand By Me?” MB)
Or the transition of others: “Your message written in the stars,/is only an illusion/The bruised skin that reveals your scars,/ was born from my confusion/The path ahead is worn and true,/ not of your invention/Your regret grows old and gray,/ And mired in apprehension…”(“Your Last Gift” 2026 MB)

3) “Fumbled apologies to my wife.” “You found me in a heap of trash/A broken axle, out of cash/An open ticket to the east/A nickel bag to calm the beast…” (“Absence” 2017 from The New Normal)

Songs seemed to gush. Michele transformed her office into a recording studio. In 2025, she produced Vampire Time, an incisive, bipartisan wake-up call. There are personal songs, but the LP is rife with protest, like her commentary about Department of Homeland Security immigration raids in U.S. cities:

“They have a private army Of Neo’s and ex-cons /They hide behind their facemasks Just to Please the Don/The Ice Man’s coming /What are you going to do??/If he’s coming for me? He’ll soon be coming for you…” (“The Iceman” 2026)

On January 26, 2026. Bettencourt brought her own band to The Cutting Room in Manhattan where it raised the roof to an enthusiastic crowd who braved mountains of snow.The single “Everybody Loves a Circus,” has become a surprise radio hit landing on two top 10 charts. Another track “Gilded Age” is getting radio play. The Vampire Time album has 145,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Michele is hard at work on a new album. The band, her band is beginning to play live.

As for her family, Michele says that “Karin and I still love each other. We’re partners. It has its limitations, but I put her through hell, so I’m deferential. Sometimes I feel like the wife. She’s been supportive. We kept most of our friends. We have a good life…I’m a husband, dad, uncle and grandfather.”

And the beat goes on.

Founder of The Michele Bettencourt Foundation for Fair Transgender Employment, she is also on the board of the Sam & Devorah Foundation for Trans Youth , and involved in many LGBTQ+ causes.

Michele Bettencourt can be heard on Apple Music, Amazon Music,
and Spotiify.
My review of Vampire Time: https://theaterpizzazz.com/michele-bettancourt-vampire-time/

“Everybody Loves a Circus” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfKR09zpM44

Selections on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/artist/michele-bettencourt-and-vampire-time/1831583691