Wow. This is probably the most lengthy “I'm not gay” statement I've ever heard. Al Reynolds has started his own channel on YouTube where he's posting videos in which an interviewer asks him questions about his life so he can straighten out the rumors (so to speak).
I've transcribed a segment of this clip below.
INTERVIEWER: You've experienced a lot of speculation about your sexuality. Tell us about that. Are you gay?
REYNOLDS: “I am not a homosexual. But the thing is, it's really weird to me — and it's kind of upsetting to me that that's where people would go as it relates to my sexuality. Because this has affected my professional life. This has affected my personal life. And if anyone knew the damage that it has caused me, they would understand why I'm very aggressive about this. But it's okay because I'm learning from this whole experience. And hopefully I'll grow from it. But I can tell you probably why…
“Look at me. I take very care in my clothes. I dress nice. I'm from the South. We used to dress up to go to church. My mother had six kids. We used to have to line up before we left the house to go to church. It was very important that we were dressed nice. That our shoes were clean, that our hair was combed, that our teeth were brushed. That we presented ourselves as a Reynolds, because that's what we were. And I kind of transport that into my adult life. So when you see me out, I'm gonna be immaculate. I'm gonna be clean. I'm gonna dress nice. I'm gonna look good. You know some people, they call that kind of soft. Okay. I've been called soft before and that's okay. Some people, as of late, call that metrosexual. I can live with it. Cause it's not gonna stop. Every time I go to an event, I'm gonna look my best. My mother used to tell me that you look cleaner than the board of health, and I used to say to her ‘ all right that means my job is done. That means I got the okay to leave.'
“See we've got to separate the gossip from the facts and that's why I'm doing this interview. I worked ten years on Wall Street. I managed multi-millionaire accounts for ten years. I did that before I met Star, so for anyone to try to like, you know, discredit my credibility and integrity, it's one of the reasons why I'm talking. You know? I teach kids at a university on a university level. I have a doctorate degree that I'm working on. This is all things that, you know, it trumps the gossip because it's the truth, and nothing trumps it better than the truth.”
Because, of course, no gays dress badly, work on Wall Street, or get university degrees…
The other clips are here and here. In them, he talks about his marriage to Star Jones, and his “true passion”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-j4D5YsIls
The Al Reynolds You Don't Know [youtube]
