In one of the most shocking news stories of our time, perpetually young entertainer Barry Manilow came out as straight this week, shocking millions of fans who had believed for decades that he was "completely, utterly gay," as one traumatized fan sobbed outside a Las Vegas record store.
The gay community had planned boycotts of his music and Vegas shows, citing cultural appropriation concerns.
"It's just not right," one San Francisco-based gay organizer huffed. "You can't dress like that and look like that and not be gay. I feel betrayed," he said, calling it an affront to gay men everywhere. To add insult to injury, Manilow admitted that his show business start -- accompanying Bette Midler at gay bathhouses, often dressed in only a towel -- was a publicity stunt.
"Come on. 'I write the songs of love and special things?'" he chuckled, quoting one of his song lyrics. "So gay. Brilliant, really. No one would have ever known. No straight guy would be caught dead in one of those bathhouses, but I needed to get the gay community as a fan base because everything they do goes viral."
Manilow's obvious inability to age (despite his seventy-one years) and feminine mannerisms were simply a cover, he said in a recent interview, for his extreme womanizing. "The female attention was constant," he said proudly. "I had to claw them off of me after shows." With a wink, he mentions that he paid child support to thirteen different women with twelve different children over the years, sired all over the world. When asked why he was paying more women than he had his children, Manilow sighed. "Well, I had this image as a secretive gay man to uphold; she threatened to go to the tabloids and tell them that we played Copacabana all night, if you know what I mean." Snapping his fingers, he broke out into one of the most hated songs of all time: Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...
