Mindy McCready photo courtesy of myspace.com/mindymcready.
April 29, 2008 - Mindy McCready, no stranger to controversy for the last four years, has now been romantically linked to Roger Clemens, a former New York Yankees pitcher swirling in his own controversy about possible steroid abuse.
The New York Daily News reports Roger began a 10-year relationship with Mindy when he was a married 28-year-old and she was a mere 15. According to the paper, which built its story on a raft of anonymous sources, the pitcher's wife has met Mindy, who has flown on his plane. The story indicated he took Mindy on expensive trips to New York and Las Vegas and that they partied in a Manhattan hotel with basketball player Michael Jordan and Monica Lewinsky.
Mindy encountered a wave of problems in the past four years. She attempted to buy drugs with a fake prescription, was charged with driving with a suspended license, was beaten and choked by a boyfriend, attempted suicide twice, was jailed for violating probation and was accused by her mother of assault. According to The Daily News, Clemens sent her money during that time period.
Clemens, for the record, confirmed that he has known Mindy for a long time but insisted their relationship was only a friendship and not a betrayal of his family. Mindy's mother told The Fort Myers News-Press that her daughter's relationship with Clemens was strictly platonic. Mindy's manager told The Tennessean she would not make a statement until they met with attorneys, fearful they might say something that could be misinterpreted and further inflame the situation.
However, early this morning, Mindy tearfully confirmed to The New York Daily News a long-term affair with Clemens.
"I cannot refute anything in the story," Mindy told the Daily News, which broke the story at midnight Sunday.
The paper reported that the two met in a Florida karaoke bar when Mindy was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and Clemens was a 28-year-old ace for the Red Sox and a married father of two.
"Yes, I have known Roger Clemens for a long time," Mindy said, reading from a prepared statement. "He's a kind and caring man. He's also a legendary athlete. The central topic in the debate, however, regards his professional life, not his personal life.
"There are legal matters working their way through the system that have nothing to do with me. From my point of view, that is where the focus should remain."
The teenage Mindy met Clemens at a Fort Myers bar called The Hired Hand, but it wasn't until later, after McCready had moved to Nashville and become a country star, that the relationship turned intimate.
Mindy has been trying to resurrect her career and her public image in recent months. She established a MySpace page which has accumulated more than 10,000 friends — an ironic number for a woman whose first hit was titled "10,000 Angels." She did not make a comment about Clemens on the page, though a bio she posted closes with a promise that addresses her big-picture issues: "You won't be disappointed with how this comes out. I won't let you!!!"
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