Bay City Rollers front man Les McKeown recently confessed to his wife of 30 years...on a reality TV show...that he spent their entire marriage cheating on her with other men.McKeown then told his wife that he's "90 percent fixed," but because he's been an alcoholic for 30 years "the other 10 percent is going to take a little longer."
In other words, he wants to remain married and still be able to sneak around and play with men on the side.
Sigh.
There is a certain temptation to poke fun at Les over this. After all, he made this confession on reality TV. But the tragedy of the situation prevents me from going there.
McKeown has been doing this his entire life. To admit now that he is a homosexual, to confess that he has lived his entire life as one big lie, goes against everything he has known. Moreover, it could be argued that coming out of the closet might destroy his family; but using British TV to admit his penchant for men probably dealt him that blow.
I hope he deals with the issue eventually. This is 2009, after all. He should be able to live his life on his own terms. The question is, can a lifetime of supression bring him to that realization?
Side note: For those not "in the know," the Bay City Rollers had a string of bubble-gum pop hits in the 70s, including the two-million seller "Saturday Night" (#1), and two other top ten million sellers, "Money Honey" (#9) and "You Made Me Believe In Magic" (#7):
