That famed record executive, Clive Davis. has been romantically involved with men is no big secret–or a big deal for that matter. But, for the first time, David openly discusses his sexuality in his new memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life. From Rolling Stone Magazine:
Davis, who has been married and divorced twice, has never before publically addressed his sexuality. In a candid five-page section toward the end of the book, due in stores today, he writes that he first had a sexual encounter with a man during “the era of Studio 54.” “On this night, after imbibing enough alcohol, I was open to responding to his sexual overtures,” writes Davis, who says he had only been with women before. Being with a man, he writes, provided “welcome relief.”
After a period of “soul searching and self-analysis,” Davis separated from his second wife in 1985, and says that he went on to have simultaneous relationships with two women and a man. In 1990, he entered into a “monogamous relationship” with a male doctor, who is not named in the book. Although that relationship ended in 2004, Davis says he has been in a subsequent relationship with another man ever since. Davis writes that his coming out deeply affected his ties with one of his sons, Mitchell: After what Davis calls “one very trying year,” father and son worked out their differences, Davis says.
The book covers Davis’ post 1975 career, as founder of Arista and J Records “in great detail” and includes an in-depth discussion of his clash with Kelly Clarkson and her management over the release of 2007’s My December. Davis “recruited focus groups to offer opinions on a batch of the album’s songs, with very negative results.” Well. Reading this book = getting pissed off all over again. Hooray.
Davis will sit down with Katie Couric tomorrow on her afternoon talk show where I expect most of the conversation will be about his sexuality and relationship with Whitney Houston. We’ll probably have to buy the book to get the Kelly Clarkson scoop.
More on Kelly via EW:
American Idol season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson also enjoyed massive Davis-masterminded early success, particularly with her second album, 2004?s Breakaway. That collection included the megahit “Since U Been Gone,” a track, Davis recalls, which Clarkson adamantly did not want featured on the CD. (Davis writes that when he insisted “Since U Been Gone” be included, Clarkson burst into “hysterical sobbing.”)
Worse was to come. The artist and the executive fell out badly over Clarkson’s desire to write more songs on her next collection, My December. In Soundtrack, Davis recalls that he didn’t believe the Clarkson-copenned material contained a No. 1 hit and told the singer’s manager that he was “out of his mind” to believe otherwise. He also writes about a meeting with Clarkson in which he told her that My December was “a pop album that still needs pop hits.” While Clarkson prevailed in her creative vision, Davis was proven right in his commercial assessment of the material when My December failed to repeat the success of Breakaway.
