Barry Manilow has come out as gay, at the age of 73.
The singer, known for his hits of the Seventies and Eighties such as Mandy, Copacabana and Looks Like We Made It, revealed his sexuality in a recent interview.
The pop icon recently welcomed People into his Palm Springs home for an exclusive interview and photo shoot with his manager and husband Garry Kief – and talked for the first time about their 39 year romance.
“I thought I would be disappointing them if they knew I was gay. So I never did anything,” he told People magazine.
.@barrymanilow reveals why he didn’t come out as gay for decades https://t.co/NK0Pt1XYwm pic.twitter.com/p6gPuB0oTK
— People Magazine (@people) April 5, 2017
The couple met in 1978, and Barry said of their meeting: “I knew that this was it. I was one of the lucky ones. I was pretty lonely before that.”
He and Garry married in a quiet ceremony on their 53-acre Palm Springs estate in 2014, something that certain fans found out about.
But, he revealed that his fears of prejudice were unwarranted. “When [the fans] found out that Garry and I were together, they were so happy. The reaction was so beautiful – strangers commenting, ‘Great for you!’ I’m just so grateful for it.”
The icon was briefly married to Susan Deixler while he was a student at the New York College of Music. The pair married after he graduated from high school and he said he was ” just was not ready for marriage”, although he wasn’t struggling with his sexuality at the time.
